Personal chat between student and instructor

Kees.M.181

Hi, I am looking for an option that allows students to send me a message as an instructor. Actually, I am only interested in reporting absences.
I use discussions for a Q+A where they can ask questions, but that is visible to everyone.

Jennifer.W.973

@Kees.M.181 For automating reporting of attendance, I tend to recommend using a True/False quiz per class session (I was present today. T or F?) and then you can associate a grade item to give attendance points. Or hide the grade item/exclude from the final grade if you just want to keep track of but not give grades for attendance.

Jennifer.W.973

@Kees.M.181 You can set up single user groups and then restrict a discussion topic and separate the threads for private posts between you and each student. https://www.vanderbilt.edu/brightspace/how-can-i-use-a-discussion-for-student-journaling-and-private-one-on-one-communication/

Kees.M.181

Thanks, Jennifer, this is what I also considered, but for 90 students, that would be a lot of threads. Or am I seeing that wrong? An alternative I thought of is to use a survey: that is quite easy, but it is a bit of a hassle to access and check the survey every week. The problem is that, as an instructor, I cannot test a survey.

Kees.M.181

Thanks, that seems to be a good solution.