Discussion boards
How discussion boards work in CLIP Learn — per-course boards, starting threads, replying, pinned threads, who can see a board, and reply notifications.
Discussion boards are per-course message boards where you can ask questions and share notes with the rest of your cohort and your trainers. Every course has exactly one board, and you only see the boards for courses you belong to. This page explains how to find a board, start a thread, reply, and how pinning and reply notifications work.
You reach discussion boards from the learner app at /app/forum. The page is titled Discussion, with the strapline "Ask questions and share notes with your cohort and trainers."
Who can see a board
A discussion board is tied to a single course, and access follows your role.
| Your role | Which boards you see | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Learner | Boards for courses you are actively enrolled in | An enrolment counts as active if it has no expiry date, or its expiry date is today or later |
Trainer (FACULTY) | Every course board in your organisation | Staff are not required to be enrolled |
Administrator (ADMIN) | Every course board in your organisation | Same as trainers |
Boards are scoped to your organisation
You can never see a board, thread, or reply that belongs to another organisation (tenant). Every action checks that the course lives in your organisation before it runs, and trying to open a thread from another organisation returns a "not found" page.
If you have no courses at all, the board list shows "You have no courses to discuss yet." and there is nothing to post to.
Choosing a course board
At the top of the Discussion page, each course you can access appears as a selectable tab. The currently open board is highlighted; the others are plain buttons you can click to switch.
- By default the first board in your list is opened.
- The open board is remembered in the page address as
?course=<course-id>, so you can link straight to a specific board. - If you follow a link to a course you are not allowed to see, the page quietly falls back to your first available board instead.
Trainers and admins see courses ordered alphabetically by title. Learners see the courses they are enrolled in.
Reading the thread list
Below the course tabs, the board lists up to 100 threads. Each row shows:
| Element | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Pin icon | Shown only if the thread is pinned (see Pinned threads) |
| Title | The thread's topic |
| Preview line | The first part of the thread's opening message, truncated to one line |
| Author and date | Who started the thread, and the day and month it was created (for example, 4 Jul) |
| Reply count | A speech-bubble icon with the number of replies |
Threads are ordered with pinned threads first, then by most recent activity — a thread jumps back to the top of the unpinned list whenever someone replies to it. Dates are shown in your own time zone.
If a board has no threads yet, you see "No discussions yet — start the first one."
Starting a thread
Anyone who can see a board can start a thread on it — learners and staff alike. The Start a discussion form sits directly above the thread list.
Both fields are compulsory. If either the title or the message is empty (or only spaces), nothing is posted — the form simply does nothing. Leading and trailing spaces are trimmed, and anything beyond the length limits is cut off rather than rejected.
| Field | What it does | Limits / defaults |
|---|---|---|
Topic (title) | The thread's title, shown in the list and at the top of the thread | Required; trimmed; max 160 characters |
Message (body) | Your opening question or note | Required; trimmed; max 8,000 characters |
Opening a thread and replying
Click any thread in the list to open it at /app/forum/<thread-id>. The thread page shows:
- A back link to the course board.
- The thread title (with a pin icon if it is pinned), the author's name, and the date and time it was created (shown in your time zone).
- The full opening message, with line breaks preserved.
- All replies, oldest first, each showing the author's name and the date and time.
- A Reply box at the bottom.
To reply:
An empty or whitespace-only reply is ignored. You must still have access to the course to reply — if you have lost access, the reply will not be saved.
| Field | What it does | Limits / defaults |
|---|---|---|
Reply (body) | Your contribution to the thread | Required; trimmed; max 8,000 characters |
Notifications on replies
When someone replies to a thread, the person who started the thread is notified — provided they did not write that reply themselves (you are never notified about your own reply).
The notification:
- Is titled "New reply:
<thread title>" with the body "<name>replied to your post". - Links straight to the thread.
- Appears in your in-app notifications and as a web push notification (if you have enabled push).
- Is also emailed to the thread author, but only if email sending is configured for your organisation.
Only the thread starter is notified
Reply notifications go to the original thread author, not to everyone who has replied earlier in the thread. Other participants will not be pinged when a new reply lands.
Pinned threads
Pinning keeps an important thread at the top of a board, above all unpinned threads, regardless of how recently others have been active.
- Only trainers and administrators can pin or unpin. Learners never see the pin control.
- On the thread page, staff see a pin button in the top-right corner. Its tooltip reads "Pin" when the thread is unpinned and "Unpin" when it is already pinned. Clicking it toggles the state.
- A pinned thread shows a pin icon both in the board list and beside its title on the thread page.
- New threads start unpinned by default.
Deleting a thread
A thread can be deleted by its author or by any trainer or administrator. Deleting a thread also removes all of its replies.
- The delete button (a bin icon) appears in the top-right of the thread page for anyone allowed to delete it.
- Learners see the delete button only on threads they started; they cannot delete other people's threads.
- Staff can delete any thread on a board they can access.
- Deletion applies as long as the thread belongs to your organisation.
There is no reply-level delete
You can delete a whole thread, but individual replies cannot be removed on their own. Deleting the thread is the only way to remove its contents.
Common situations
| Situation | What you see |
|---|---|
| You belong to no courses | "You have no courses to discuss yet." — no board to post to |
| A board has no threads | "No discussions yet — start the first one." |
| You submit an empty topic or message | Nothing is posted; the form does nothing |
| Your enrolment has expired | The course no longer appears in your board tabs |
| You open a thread from another organisation | A "not found" page |
| You are a learner viewing a thread | No pin control; delete only on your own threads |
Exam planner & results
Plan which CGI module you'll sit at which sitting, record your grade and score, and manage your exam bookings in CLIP Learn's personal exam planner.
For Trainers — overview
What the trainer (Faculty) workspace is, how its navigation is laid out, and links to every trainer page in CLIP Learn.