Discussion word count

Question

Currently when a user posts a discussion thread reply, if the original thread is included in the reply, the word count counts all words in the reply as well as the words from the original thread. Some of us have a word-count requirement for replies. How can we get it that the word count feature only counts the words in the replies and doesn't inlcude the original thread in its count? This is an issue at both schools at which I use D2L, and I believe it is a product issue.

DAVID.L.935 · Answer

Thank you for your response. I thought that it might be a PIE issue, but thought I'd check here first. I ask my students to uncheck the "include original post" box, but they don't always. A coursewide setting change is required by our college administrators. However, this seems like something that needs to be fixed. I have posted in PIE regarding this. Thanks again.

Francisco.V.2799 · Answer

Hello David,

I reviewed the behavior described and confirmed that the Discussion word count counts the text included in the reply body. If the original thread/post is included in the reply, either through the user’s personal Discussion settings or by manually adding the original post text, those words become part of the reply and are included in the word count.

The “Include original post in reply” option is located under Account Settings > Discussions > Reply Settings; however, this is a personal user setting and does not apply course-wide to all users. At this time, I was not able to identify a course-level setting or configuration that allows the word count to exclude the original thread/post text while only counting the newly written reply.

As a workaround, users should leave “Include original post in reply” unchecked and avoid using the “Add original post text” option when replying, especially in discussions where a word-count requirement is being used.

Based on the current functionality, this would be considered a product enhancement request. If this behavior is important for your workflow, we recommend submitting a Product Idea so it can be reviewed by the Product team for future consideration.

Best regards,