Introduction to Discussions

Discussions are a great way to allow your participants to easily interact and converse with you and one another. Every Study has a Discussions tab that appears on the main navigation bar for easy access. 

If desired, you can rename, move or disable the Discussions tab for your Study in the Study Settings: Configuration area. You can also do this from the Discussions tab by clicking into Options menu and choosing Basic Configuration.

This area allows you to configure Topics which are the individual threads where the conversation will take place. Participants can post replies to the Topic and comment / rate other posts (these can also include media components like images or videos).

Note you can use @mentions to trigger a notification to maximize engagement. You can mention individuals, segments or special groups like @everyone and @participants. Learn more about Mentions.

Discussions vs. Activities

Unlike Activities, Discussions don't require everyone to join the conversation (i.e. there is no set completion criteria or status). They are typically used to provide an always on section of the community for engagement purposes, or a more unstructured area to supplement the more refined and sequenced Activities.

The less structured and more conversational style of Discussion Topics can be great for collaborative methodologies like group ideation or co-creation. If you want to give an added level of interactivity to participants for your Recollective Study, you can choose to allow participants to start their own Topics as well. 

Discussion Topics

Each conversation is called a Topic which is a threaded space with an initial description to set the context for that space. Once a Topic is added, it receives Replies which can in turn receive Comments and Ratings.

Here's what a Discussion Topic might look like:

Topics can be followed to receive notifications for when new posts and comments are made. If there are many Topics in a Study, you can group them into Discussion Categories and subcategories for more organization. There are also other customization options for Topics surrounding scheduling and feedback stages.