An instructor brought this to my attention the other day.
Has anyone noticed that the definition of "Anonymous" is different between “Discussion Topics” and “Surveys”. In fact, in the context of discussion posts, the term "Anonymous" seems a bit misleading.
As an Instructor, here’s what I see when I click on the ? to see a definition of “Anonymous” for a Discussion Topic:
Reading this, I am led to believe that no names will be visible for posts in this Topic. And when we try it out we see that, yes, this is true for Learners. This is what a post looks like:
But for the Instructor, they see this:
And when they click “Show Author”, oops, the student’s name appears:
So…why is this an issue? Well, a student may think they can post something negative or controversial to a Discussion Forum and not be identifiable, but this is not the case.
At the very least, this should be explained in the definition alert box. Students should also be informed that the Instructor will be able to see their names even if the other students can't.
In contrast, when you choose to make a Survey “Anonymous”, this is the definition you see:
And the results, when they are submitted, are truly anonymous:
