In your VSTAR Learn courses, you can often choose whether or not you want to subscribe to the course discussion forums.  Students and faculty are automatically subscribed to course News Forums.

When a person is subscribed to a forum it means that they will be notified (according to their Notifications and Messaging settings preferences) of every subsequent post in that forum. Posters have 30 minutes by default to edit their post before it is sent to subscribers. This time limit can be changed by an administrator.

People can usually choose whether or not they want to be subscribed to each forum. However, if a teacher forces subscription on a particular forum then this choice is taken away and everyone in the class will get notified. This is especially useful in the News forum and in forums used towards the beginning of the course.

VSTAR courses automatically generate a News Forum which defaults to automatically subscribe all participants in a course.  The name of the News Forum can be changed to something more appropriate, such as “Important Announcements.” This is a useful feature and many use this forum to announce exam dates, times or changes to exams, lectures or seminars, as well as important information about course work throughout a term or special announcements relating to events. The News Forum typically appears as the Announcements forum at the top of a course page.

To subscribe or unsubscribe to a forum that allows optional subscription:

1. Navigate to the course in VSTAR Learn. You may click the link to the Forum directly from the News Announcements page or follow the directions below.
2. Select “Forums” from the Activities block.
3. Click the link to the forum you wish to subscribe or unsubscribe. You may also subscribe or unsubscribe to all forums at once (top right corner).
   • Notice in this table that you can also select your Email Digest type for forums that you are subscribed to. This allows you to adjust the email updates you receive
     • No digest= one email per post
     • Complete posts= one email per day, displaying all posts made
     • Subjects only= one email per day, displaying only the subjects of each post made
4. Once a particular forum has been opened, click on the gear icon and selecting “Subscribe to this forum”. If you are subscribed, you will have the option to unsubscribe in the same location. You also have he ability to subscribe to individual discussions within a forum.