Warwick Forums is a discussion group system. It forms part of the Unversity's Web Architecture by providing a structured tool for collaboration over a period of hours, days or weeks (that is, non-real-time or asynchronous collaboration, as distinct from a chat-room where everyone participates simultaneously). This document is intended only as an overview to its features, not a comprehensive list. It serves to introduce some terms which Warwick Forums uses in a particular way.

The system is divided into forums which are analogous to bulletin boards. Forums are grouped together into categories which are arranged hierarchically like directories. For example, the top level category includes a category for departmental forums, which includes a category for the Chemistry department, which includes a category for First year undergraduate modules, which includes a forum for module CH134 (Foundation Mathematics for Scientists). This is an example of the logical structure which helps users to find forums of interest.

Although it is possible to set a forum to allow anonymous posting - that is, to allow people who have not logged into the system to post messages - for most purposes, users must sign in. Users who have previously signed into one of the other web architecture applications are automatically recognised by Forums; users who go straight to Forums will be prompted to sign in using the standard Warwick signin page when attempting to access a protected forum. People who are not members of the University (known as external users) can also sign in to access forums, once they have been allocated a usercode and password for this purpose.

Forums and categories have owners. The default owner is IT Services, but departments are encouraged to take ownership of their own categories and forums. Thus, the Chemistry category is owned by a designated member of staff in that department, who can create forums within it. Where a forum relates to a teaching module, it is usual for the lecturer/s in charge of that module to be the owner/s.

Forum owners can set permissions which control which users have what kind of access to the forum. Permissions can be set on the basis of University member/external user, departmental membership or simply a list of individuals; the permissions which can be granted (or revoked) control viewing, replying, starting new topics and so on. Since any number of permissions can be granted to any number of groups and/or individuals, the system is very flexible in its degree of control. Most forums only allow access to members of the University, but external users can access some forums which are used for cross-institution collaboration.

Each forum has a forum home page, such as the one for the forums forum (for discussion about Warwick Forums itself). This gives an overview of the forum and tells the user what access they have; it also lists the most recent topics in the forum. Each topic represents a thread of discussion with a particular heading. (Clicking on the name of a topic shows the messages within that topic.) There are also buttons with which users can start a new topic (if they have permission to do so), search the forum, and (if they are not already a member), join it.

Joining a forum and becoming a member has a number of benefits to the user. Once you are a forum member, the system remembers which messages in the forum you have read to date, and flags topics that have unread messages in for you. Each user has a My Forums list which also flags the forums which contain unread messages. In addition to this, members can set various preferences for the forum, including whether messages should be displayed earliest-first, latest-first or in threaded order (showing which message was a reply to which). They can also opt to receive new messages in the forum by email and SMS to their mobile phone (currently SMS is for staff only).

Users who receive forum messages by email can post their replies by email and have them appear in the forum. Thus, users can choose whether to read the forum on the web site or by email. Forum owners can additionally choose to have the forum gatewayed to Usenet, giving people a third option of reading the forum via the campus Usenet News server. Any messages posted via one of these three media are automatically made visible in all three.

Messages in forums can have different priorities, and users can choose to receive only high-priority or urgent messages by email/SMS, rather than all messages. In addition, there is a type of message called a source message which is always visible on each page of a topic discussion, so that it can easily be referred to.

That concludes this brief and in no way comprehensive tour of the system's features. Warwick Forums is being continuously developed in order to better meet the needs of communities within the University. If you have any questions or requests for new features, please email e-lab.