A voting system applied to online student discussion forums

Discussion forums enable students to both seek answers from teaching staff and discuss topics among themselves. However, there is often little incentive for students to post, especially to write poignant questions, answers and general discussion. This paper presents a study of the interactivity of students in online discussion forums when a voting system is added, enabling students to up-vote or down-vote any post. In addition, bonus marks were available for the highest voted posts during each week. Results show that overall student interactivity increased more than three-fold, and student satisfaction of the learning resources increased.