Comparison of Discussion Boards: Ed Discussion and Canvas Discussions

When choosing a discussion board tool for your course, you may wonder which tool would best fit your needs. We have gathered below a brief comparison of features and tool options in order to better inform you as you make your decisions. We invite you to contact us at canvas@cornell.edu to discuss which of these tools might best meet your needs. Canvas Discussions can be upgraded with the beta feature Discussion Redesign.

Feature/Function	Ed Discussion	Canvas Discussions
Initiate discussion	Often student-initiated. Instructor/TA can also initiate or just oversee.	Requires a formal prompt, usually by Instructor/TA and then students can respond. Students can also create and lead a discussion if the setting is enabled by Instructor.
Asynchronous/ Synchronous	Used asynchronously but could allow for synchronous communications. Has more of an instant feel.	Designed for asynchronous interaction.
Often used for...	Collaborative problem solving, Q&A forum, short informal back and forth posting. Especially useful for large classes and STEM discipline.	Discussing course content, hosting ice breakers/activities, sharing student work for feedback, formal writing practice, Q&A forum.
Anonymous posting	Anonymous or non-anonymous posting. Note: Students are only anonymous to other students, not to faculty or TAs. Private posting is also available.	Non-anonymous posting only. No private posts. The Discussions Redesign feature allows for ungraded anonymous discussions. Discussions can be set so that all student posts are anonymous or so that students can choose whether to post anonymously.
Platform design	All-in-one screen. View the status of all threaded discussions on the left side of screen while also participating inside of a discussion on the right side. Tool is enabled in Canvas Settings. Opens away from Canvas.	View only one linear discussion thread at a time. Cannot view the status of other threads unless you click back to the other discussions. Tool is enabled in Canvas Settings. Opens within Canvas.
Endorse correct answers	Special Endorse button for Instructors to confirm right answers.	Instructors/Graders can like correct answers or allow participants to like posts. Posts can also be set to sort the most liked to the top of the discussion.
Assessment/ Grading	Not synced with Canvas Gradebook. However, can manually create a separate gradebook column in Canvas to insert grades	Fully integrated with Canvas Gradebook. Speedgrader feature used for commenting and scoring with/without rubric. The system can consolidate all the posts a student has made for easy grading or see their comments in context of the discussion.
Link to other areas of Canvas	Does not easily link out to areas of Canvas.	Can link out to areas of Canvas.
Group discussions	Cannot assign groups. However, students can go to respective labeled threads.	Allows for Group Discussions so only students interact with designated people. Can only see their group's discussion.
Multimedia	Can embed images, video, and documents.	Can embed images, video, and documents using the rich content editor. For video, use Kaltura inside the rich content editor (for both Instructors and students).
Other important distinctive features	Easier to express ideas with equations, runnable code, and annotate images. Handy analytics available. More categorization options of posts and threads using tags and keyword searching.	Canvas Course Analytics available. No tagging but can search words. Ideal for smaller courses. Not good for massive amounts of posts with large courses. (Group Discussions are the exception.)

Additional Resources

CTI Resource: Getting Started with Ed Discussion
CTI Resource: Getting Started with Canvas Discussions