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How to Create Effective Summaries for Discussion Forums

The purpose of this resource is to help you think about ways to create summaries of discussion postings. Summaries are a way to identify common themes, identify points of disagreement, add positive feedback, add constructive criticisms, point out omissions, and reinforce positive discussion board behaviors. Summaries can reduce the amount of individual posts required of the instructor and provide closure to an activity on the board.

1. Select all posts in a forum (Use the Select All feature in the lower left).
2. Collect all posts (Use the Collect feature in the toolbar).
3. Highlight the collected posts, copy, and paste into a word processor.
4. Identify and color code major themes.
5. Color code points of agreement.
6. Color code points of disagreement.
7. Create a list of major themes with points of agreement and/or disagreement. Summarize each briefly (1-2 sentences). This is also the time to copy a portion of the text created by the students and attribute each example to the original author (reinforcement strategy).
8. Add positive feedback, constructive criticisms, and point out omissions.
9. Copy this summary and post at the end of the discussion.

Adapted from: Salmon, G. (2000). E-moderating: The key to teaching and learning online (2nd ed.). London: RoutledgeFalmer.

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