What is the Academic Forum?

The Academic Forum is the main component of each module. This is where students will engage directly with their tutor group through discussions of each weekly topic. This active engagement by all students, as a direct responder and as a peer reviewer, ensures the academic discussions will enrich your knowledge and understanding of each week’s topics, giving you a broader appreciation of multidisciplinary perspectives.

Scenarios reflective of day-to-day practice will be presented for the students to consider and answer every week. A commentary on the scenario is provided and tutors then facilitate a discussion based on issues raised that work towards meeting the learning outcomes of the module. The students should critically discuss the concepts and learn by finding relevant literature, reading and critically appraising it, discussing it within the academic forum and applying it critically to real-world examples and their own practice.

Students are graded on:

1) The promptness and initiative of their postings (ideally within 48 hrs of a Tutor's thread)

2) The delivery of their post (e.g spelling and grammar)

3) The quality of the response and its relevance to the topic posted

4) The expression of opinions and ideas within the post

5) The contribution and engagement with the learning community - students who motivate and engage in conversation with their peers on the forum will achieve higher results.

You can find more information on how you are graded through the grading rubric on the Instruction & Resources page.

Students are free to illustrate their posts with images, graphs and various other media including videos. This facility is available in the reply field once you click to reply to a post. If you are unsure how to insert an image into your post, please click here for guidance.