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Ed Discussion

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What is Ed Discussion?

Brown now has an official partnership with Ed Discussion as the university’s centrally supported Online Discussion Platform. Ed Discussion scales class communications by allowing students to ask questions, answer each other’s questions, and bring attention to pertinent questions for teaching assistants and faculty to answer. Faculty can endorse correct student answers, post announcements, and facilitate transparent course-wide communication. 

Using Ed Discussion

Ed Discussion is available with a Brown Canvas site as well as outside of Canvas by visiting https://edstem.org/us/.   

  1. To activate Ed Discussion in a Canvas site, navigate to the site and click on Settings. 
  2. Click the Navigation tab at the top of the Settings page. 
  3. Then click and drag Ed Discussion from the bottom section of hidden tools to the top section of visible tools. 
  4. Click Save.
  • Ed Discussion has provided an instructor guide to walk through how to use the platform.
Note: users must be logged into the platform to access this guide.
  • Once logged into Ed Discussion via Canvas, the Getting Started guide can be found by clicking on the "Account" icon in the top right. Select "help" from the drop down menu to access the guide.
  • Both instructors and students can find help topics for using Ed Discussions here
  • Tips and tricks for instructors and TAs can be found here.
  • Instructors can direct students to this Quick Start Guide to help them use the platform for the first time.

Resources

Q&A:

Is Ed Discussion an Accessible platform? Unlike other discussion platforms, the complete, fully-featured Ed Discussions platform is WCAG 2.0 AA Compliant.

How does Ed Discussion handle Student Data & Privacy? Ed Discussion does not provide, sell, rent or lease  information to any third parties. The full Privacy Policy can be found here

Do instructors need to use Canvas to use Ed Discussion in a course? While Ed Discussion can be synced with Canvas to acquire course rosters, instructors may choose to use the platform without a corresponding Canvas course.

Support

Instructors can email Digital Learning & Design (dld@brown.edu) to communicate with Brown's instructional designers and technologists regarding Ed Discussion or submit requests for support.  


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