How do I view Discussions as a student?

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The Discussion Index page allows you to view all the discussions within a course.

Note:

Your instructor may choose to hide the Discussions link in Course Navigation. If the Discussions link is not available, you can still access Discussions through other areas of Canvas.
If your discussion looks different than what is displayed in this lesson, you can reference the Discussions Redesign guides for more information.

Open Discussions

In Course Navigation, click the Discussions link.

View Discussions

Discussions are organized into three main areas.

Discussions [1]: These are current discussions within the course. Discussions are ordered by most recent activity. You will only see this section heading if there are discussions within this section.

Pinned Discussions [2]: These are discussions that your instructor wants you to pay specific attention to and will appear at the top of the Discussions page. You will only see this section heading if there are discussions within this section as designated by your instructor.

Closed for Comments [3]: These discussions have been manually closed for comments, or the discussion is past the available from/until date. These are discussions that are only available in a read-only state and are ordered by most recent activity. You will always see this section heading, even if there are no discussions within this section.

View Individual Discussion

Each discussion displays whether or not it is a graded discussion [1], the name of the discussion [2], the date on which the last discussion reply was posted [3], the due date (if any) [4], the number of unread/total posts in the discussion [5], and whether or not you are subscribed to the discussion [6].

You can also view availability dates for individual discussions [7].

An unread icon next to a discussion indicates an unread discussion [8]. The number of unread/total posts will not appear for group discussions and discussions that have no discussion replies [9].

There will also be a peer review icon if a graded discussion has been assigned peer reviews [10].

View Availability Dates

The first dates you may see are the availability dates. Your instructor may use availability dates to restrict discussion replies to a specified date range. The availability dates are the range of time that the discussion is accessible to you. Availability dates also appear on the Assignments page for all discussions with assigned availability dates.

If the discussion does not have a date listed, the discussion is open; you can reply to the discussion at any time during your course [1].
If the discussion says Not Available Until [date], the discussion is locked until the specified date [2].
If the discussion says Available until [date], you can reply to the discussion until the specified date [3].
If the discussion is in the Closed for Comments section, the discussion cannot accept submissions [4]. Discussions in this section may show a "Was locked at [date]" to indicate when the discussion was closed for comments [5].

Note: If a date does not include a time, the listed date defaults to 12 am. Therefore, the last day for the discussion is the full day before the listed date. For instance, if a discussion is Available until March 29, you can access the discussion until March 28 at 11:59 pm.

View Due Dates

The second set of dates are the due dates [1] for each respective discussion. However, due dates only apply to graded discussions. Any replies to discussions after the due date are marked as late; some instructors may deduct points for late replies. You can still reply to late discussion before the Available until date.

Please be aware that the Due date may be before or on the Available date.

Due dates also include a time [2]. If your instructor does not set a specific due time, the graded discussion due time defaults to 11:59 pm and submissions will be late if submitted after 11:59:59 pm.

Filter Discussions

There are a few ways to filter Discussions:

View All or only unread discussions by selecting an option from the drop-down menu.
Search for a discussion by typing a discussion title, a user name, or a keyword in the Search field.
Start a new discussion by clicking the Add Discussion button. (Note: Some instructors may choose to disable this option.)
Change the discussions settings to manually mark posts as read by clicking the Settings icon.

Open Discussion

To view the details of a discussion, click the name of the discussion.

View Open Discussion

When a discussion is available for participation, you can view the Reply field beneath the discussion topic [1]. To reply to the discussion, click the Reply button.

The discussion also shows the discussion topic [2] and the name of the person who created the discussion [3].

Notes:

If your discussion looks different than what is displayed in this lesson, you can reference the Discussions Redesign guides for more information.
The Discussions page supports keyboard shortcuts. To view a window with a list of keyboard navigation shortcuts, press Alt+F8 (on a PC keyboard) or Option+Fn+F8 (on a Mac keyboard) simultaneously on your keyboard

View Graded Discussion

If your discussion is a graded discussion, you can view the discussion the same way as regular discussions with additional information:

Graded Discussion details [1]: points and due date for the graded discussion, if any. Not all graded discussions may have a due date.
Rubric [2]: any grading criteria that your instructor has provided for the graded discussion. A graded discussion may or may not include a rubric. Before submitting your reply, you may want to review the discussion rubric.

If you were to miss the due date, you may be able to submit a reply to the discussion before the last day of the course. If the graded discussion does not have a due date, you can submit a reply any time before the last day of the course.

View Discussion with Required Replies

If you are unable view responses from other students, you may be required to make a reply before you can view them. Once you reply to the discussion, any other replies will be visible.

View Group Discussion

If a discussion is a group discussion, you will be directed to Discussions in your group.

View Locked Discussion

When a discussion is locked, you can't view any details in the discussion topic. However, you can view the date when the discussion will be open.

View Closed Discussion

Both graded- and non-graded discussions can be closed at any time. Your instructor may note in the description topic or syllabus if a discussion is only scheduled to be available for a specific period of time.

When a discussion has been closed for comments, you can still view the details of the discussion topic and any replies, but you can no longer reply to the discussion.

The discussion was either available until a specific date, or your instructor manually closed the topic.