Hide discussion responses until a student posts (Post first)

Updated 17 Aug 2021

You can hide responses to a specific discussion topic so that a student must first post a response to that topic in order to see other responses. You need to be in Manage mode to select this option. You can also apply this setting to all new topics in a course with the course-level Discussions Settings.

  1. Open the discussion menu item.
  2. Select Manage View above the discussion page then select Manage.
  3. Select the Edit icon  in the topic's row.
  4. Under the content editor, select Post first - Hide responses from a student until a response is posted.

    You can later clear this option to show the responses to students before posting.

  5. Select Save Changes.

    A student now sees responses only after first posting a response to the topic.

    After selecting this topic, students see this message: “Responses for this topic are hidden from you until you make a response.”

You can see the total and unread number of student responses in the Topics list if you select the Display number of responses for a topic option in Discussions Settings. However, to view student responses to any “Post first” topic you need to switch to Manage mode, or you can respond to the topic yourself to see all responses in View mode.