As an alternative to the standard Forum activity on eClass, instructors may add an Anonymous Forum if they want students to be able to post in forums without being identified.

A common use would allow students to post questions about course content without fear or to gather anonymous feedback about a course.

Anonymous forums operate the same way as standard forums apart from the display of poster identity: users may subscribe to anonymous forums and receive notifications from them but they do not log or track any user information or activity. 

Note that once you create an anonymous forum, it is not possible to determine who made a specific post (even for eClass site admins).

Adding Anonymous Forums to a course:

1. Click to activate in the top right of your course page:
   
   
   
   
   
2. Move to the topic area where you wish to add content (the week, unit, etc.) and click on the Add an activity or resource link.
   
   
3. Click on the Anonymous Forum icon.
   
   
   
   
4. A new page will appear with the forum settings.
   
   
5. There is a wide range of settings where you can enter specific customizations for your forum. All that is required is adding the forum name and saving changes:
   
   
   
   
6. You can also set the forum type just as in standard forums:
   
   
   
   
7. Ratings and grading capabilities are not compatible with anonymous posts as there is no one who can be identified to rate.
   
   

Posting to Anonymous Forums:

Posting and generally using anonymous forums is very similar to using standard forums.

1. When posting, Anonymous post is enabled by default. Users can choose to reveal their identities by removing the check below the 'Message' text window.

2. Anonymous posts appear the same way regular posts do but are identified only by 'Anonymous':

 3. Additional options in the message interface include whether to be notified on anonymous posts:

Notes:

• All other features conform to those of a standard Forum.
• Ratings and grading capabilities are not compatible with the nature of an anonymous forum. It is a known issue that these settings still appear in the interface. Removing the checkmark in 'Anonymous post' does not affect this. This category option should be ignored completely by users and ratings or grading should not be attempted on anonymous posts.