Vol. 7. No. 2 M-1 September 2003

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Introduction

For the purposes of EFL/ESL teachers, an online discussion forum is a place where students can discuss issues asynchronously. The best-known example is probably Dave's ESL Cafe. Different from class discussion, an online discussion forum allows students more time to compose, edit, and refine their ideas before posting their messages, which oftentimes contributes to more in-depth discussions. It also encourages reading: Students have to read postings of their fellow students and online articles hyperlinked to the postings. Other benefits of a discussion forum are that students who are reticent in class tend to express themselves more online, that all discussions online have to be done in the target language, and that it is fit for sensitive or controversial issues some students may find embarrassing to discuss face-to-face.

There are two discussion formats available: Linear (unthreaded) discussion and threaded discussion. In a linear discussion, students respond to a given topic and their messages are listed in order of submission. In a threaded discussion, students can reply to either the general topics or any individual message submitted by other students. By doing the latter, students generate sub-topics, and discussion "threads" are thus formed.

The discussion topics on the current online forums, however, are preset, and teachers have no control over both the development of the discussion and the participants. The pedagogical values of these online forums are therefore limited. To solve this problem, teachers can set up their own discussion forums. A discussion forum can be utilized in several ways:

• As a teacher-guided discussion area: Teachers decide on the discussion topics covered in the class readings or lectures. This can be done as a pre-class warm-up or post-class extension activity. The discussion results can be used for summary reports or writing assignments.
• As a student-guided discussion area: Students are divided into groups. Each group generates a discussion topic from class readings or lectures and discusses their respective topics while responding to other groups. This can be done by simply creating different discussion threads if the forum hosting service does not allow creating different topics. [-1-]
• As a project discussion area: Teachers assign students group tasks to complete. Students exchange ideas online, which can be the materials student reports are based on, or teachers' tracking of student participation and group interactions.
• As a creative writing area: Teachers create different story starters in different discussion threads and have students continue the stories.
• As a class message board: Teachers create a socializing area for students to get to know each other and socialize, which in turn tends to encourage participation in face-to-face classroom activities, as students may feel more emotionally secure once there is a bond among them. Teachers can also create an announcement area for class assignments and activities.

  This paper introduces and evaluates five free forum hosting services: World Crossing, VoyForums, Nicenet, Boards2Go and Asiaco Forum. These sites are first evaluated in a chart to see if they provide the basic functions of a discussion forum. Following this, I will list other characteristics, and the pros and cons of the sites respectively.

Evaluation Chart

World Crossing -- http://www.worldcrossing.com

See an example forum created with World Crossing: Let's Debate!

Characteristics

World Crossing offers most of the functions a discussion forum can offer. Its administrator's control panel allows you to customize your forums in a number of ways, including forum appearance, members and access control, moderator features, and discussion style. Messages can be accompanied by simple author information and portraits.

Pros

• You can set your forums to be public or private, and students can join other public forums at the site.
• There are six levels of access to your forum: Owner, host, read & post, moderated, read only, and no access.
• The unique "quick edit" feature allows italics, bold type, and other formatting without any knowledge of HTML.
• If you type a URL in a message, it automatically becomes an active link.
• You can create links that go directly to specific discussions, or even specific messages from your website.
• You can see the numbers of page views and posts by using "usage statistics."
• Chatrooms can be created for synchronous communication.
• Students can create their profiles and portraits.
• You can set the discussions to be threaded or linear.
• Messages can be expanded (show replies) or collapsed (hide replies), searched by keywords, and sorted by alphabet, date or recent activity.
• Message authors can edit or delete their own messages, and you can edit any message on the forum.
• It offers a customizable spell check.
• Messages and discussion threads can be relocated manually.
• You can decide who gets to create new discussion topics.
• A Spanish version of the site is provided. [-2-]

Cons

• Instead of being able to use a message control to delete messages, you have to go into individual messages to delete them.
• Original messages are not automatically quoted in the reply box. You have to use quick-editor to add the greater-than sign (>).
• The discussions on the forum cannot be saved or archived.
• Discussions expire automatically if they haven't had a post in the last four months.
• Advertising banners are displayed within all forums.

VoyForums-- http://www.voy.com

See an example forum I created with VoyForums: Street Food Around the World

Characteristics

This site provides elaborate customizations, especially in relation to changing the forum appearances. Students do not have to register but can only enter a forum with a forum ID which the forum owner releases to them. It is ambitious in becoming "one of the most powerful and configurable message board providers on the Internet."

Pros

• User-friendly configuration options, such as simple pull-down menus for selecting colors and the "theme selector," which works like a template.
• You can use an image as your forum background, or in a forum's header, description, or footer.
• You can decide on the maximum number of threads in a single index, maximum messages, and maximum total size of all messages.
• You can view and reset the activity counters of your forum, such as total and average forum accesses and posts in the time slot chosen.
• You can set your forum to be text or table style.
• You can set your forum to be public or private, and students can join other public forums at the site.
• You can set your forum to be moderated.
• You can set minimum time between posts for spam protection.
• You can back up message database and forum settings.
• You can use passwords to protect your forum. Students can be given a read-password or a write-password, which allows them to read or to write.
• Discussion threads can be relocated manually.
• You can choose to display messages in full text or just links.
• Students can preview and edit their messages before posting them. [-3-]

Cons

• The users' manual for forum owners can look complicated since it offers many functions.
• New messages are not marked as new or unread.
• Posted messages cannot be edited.
• When a forum reaches its capacity limit, you have to choose to expire some threads.
• Since a new discussion topic can be created by any student, if you preset a few topics, you have to remind students to only use reply.
• Advertising banners are displayed within all forums.

Nicenet-- http://www.nicenet.org

Use example01 as your username and password to log in or use class key N73795Q35 to join a class I created with Nicenet: Epal Web Page. Click on "conferencing."

Characteristics

Nicenet is a non-profit course management tool. Without fancy configurable functions, it is still perhaps the strongest in terms of pedagogical values. It offers such class areas as "conferencing", "link sharing", "document", "class schedule" and "class members." Students join a class with the class key and register themselves. Discussion forums can be created under "conferencing." The main page of conferencing only displays discussion topics, and students cannot add new discussion topics on this page without permission.

Pros

• Students can choose to read messages posted since their last login, newest on top or bottom, hide replies or show replies, and view summary only or entire messages.
• Students can edit their messages after sending them.
• You and students can send personal messages to each other through the class page.
• You can edit any message on the forum.
• You can choose to confirm message deletion.
• There is a print view for all messages.
• You can decide who gets to create conferencing topics.
• Students can turn in their discussion reports in the "document" area.
• The total numbers of students, discussion topics and messages are listed in "class administration."
• You can create many classes under one account.
• Classes do not expire unless they remain inactive for years.
• There are no ads at all. [-4-]

Cons

• The forum appearance cannot be customized.
• Once created, discussion threads (conferencing topics) cannot be relocated manually.
• Original messages are not automatically quoted in the reply box.
• The discussions on the forum cannot be saved or archived.
• There is neither a profanity filter nor monitoring tools, so you are responsible for monitoring the posts.

Boards2Go -- http://www.boards2go.com/

See an example forum I created with Boards2Go: Story Relay

Characteristics

Boards2Go offers message boards for people to add to their websites, but since these message boards provide such customizable functions as member registration, a password to protect your forum, message editing by authors, bad word filtering and threaded discussion, they can still be educationally useful.

Pros

• You can register your students or have them register themselves.
• You and students can both enable email notification for replies.
• You can have new posts forwarded to your mailbox.
• Messages can be previewed and edited before being posted.
• Students can choose to edit their messages with or without passwords after posting them.
• You can make the main topic of a thread appear in bold and highlight new posts in a chosen color.
• You can put your name in a different color than your students to show the messages are from you.
• You can back up your message board data.
• "Flood Control" only allows one post every 60 seconds.
• "Thread Spacers" adds a space between threads to separate different discussion topics.

Cons

• Once created, discussion threads cannot be relocated: The newest thread is always on top.
• Since a new discussion topic can be created by any student, if you preset a few topics, you have to remind students to only use reply.
• Your forum can only hold 300 posts. When the 300 limit is reached the oldest posts will be removed.
• Original messages are not automatically quoted in the reply box.
• When registering, you are asked to select topics of interest that you wish to receive emails about.
• Advertising banners are displayed within all forums. [-5-]

Asiaco Forum -- http://forum.asiaco.com/

See an example forum I created with Asiaco Forum: Message Board for Class 117 or a sample forum offered at ForumOne.

Characteristics

Asiaco Forum, like Boards2Go, is a website geared towards webmasters. It has a counterpart, ForumOne, which has exactly the same services. Students register themselves, and they can join public forums at the site.

Pros

• You can "open", "lock" (read only) and "close" (no access) your forum.
• You can set your forum to be text or table style.
• "Topic Separator" allows space between discussion threads.
• The number of times a message has been viewed and the size of each message can be shown on the index page.
• You can prohibit students from using certain words that you decide on.
• You can delete and edit any message on your forum.
• Both you and your students can invite people to join your forum by sending them invitations from the forum.
• Messages that gain the most hits are listed under "Top Ten."

Cons

• Once created, discussion threads cannot be relocated, the newest thread is always on top.
• Since a new discussion topic can be created by any student, if you preset a few topics, you have to remind students to only use reply.
• New posts are not marked as new or unread.
• Discussion forums with no posting activity for more than 2 months will be removed.
• The discussions on the forum cannot be saved or archived.
• Advertising banners are displayed below the forum header, so it's hard to ignore them.

Conclusion

Among the five websites examined, World Crossing seems to provide the most powerful and useful services for setting up a discussion forum, while VoyForums might be the most configurable and its table-style templates offer great forum layouts. However, for language teachers who want to start simply and effectively, Nicenet is a better choice since World Crossing and VoyForums require more complicated set-ups. Boards2Go and Asiaco Forum can also be handy for setting up pre-organized discussion forums and message boards, in which the teachers do not have to move the threads around. These five sites may not be the best among all the forum hosting services, but they require low levels of expertise in technology and no software downloads. With information technology advancing, more forum providers are sure to come in the future.

CHEN Tsaihung
Chung Shan Girls' Senior High, Taipei
<rainbow@tp.edu.tw>