Discussion boards are communication tools that allow comments and questions relating to a particular subject be posted online. Members of the discussion board can actively engage in discussions by responding with their own remarks over time. The purpose of these discussions is to promote coordination and teamwork between multidisciplinary team members and agency workers enabling them to share advice and important information that may impact the resolution of the case.
The main players of a discussion board are the discussion moderator and the discussion watchers. The role of the discussion moderator is to ensure that all discussions within all collaborative outcome plans, investigations and social enterprise folders are handled appropriately and thus has the ability to manage all aspects of a discussion. By default, the discussion moderator is the owner of the collaborative outcome plan, social enterprise folder or investigation. Since discussions can contain highly sensitive and important information, the discussion moderator has the sole responsibility of closing a discussion.
The role of discussion watchers is to actively engage in the discussion by viewing and contributing discussion comments. Discussion watchers can view the discussion and are automatically notified via email when comments are added. By default, you will be added to the list of discussion watchers when you are a multidisciplinary team member, the discussion moderator, or the person who created the discussion. As an external user, you can choose to stop watching a discussion, as well as, choose to start watching it again.