Click Discussions in the course navigation menu.

Create a Discussion, add instructions, and select settings.

Add Piazza to the course navigation tab in Settings.

Create your Piazza account.

Create and configure your Piazza course.

Select Piazza in the course navigation menu to create a post.

Add PeppeR to the course navigation tab in Settings.

Click PeppeR in the course navigation menu.

Set up your Discussion folders and add new Note to the appropriate folder.

Ability to post anonymously is not available but Notes and replies can be designated as Private.  

A private note will only be visible to the author and other designated co-author and can be used as a Draft mode for the message before publishing it.

Instructors can edit and delete their own posts or student posts.

Permission to edit and delete their own posts can be given to students via Discussion settings.

Questions and answers on Piazza can be co-edited, so students and instructors can collaboratively edit these.

A history slider option shows how a question or answer has evolved over time.  

Only instructors can delete posts. 

Search field allows you to search for replies or specific authors. 

You can use the Unread button to view unread replies and Show button to view deleted replies.

Search bar allows you to search for posts containing a particular keyword.

Built-in filters and folders to allow you to quickly locate and organize posts.

Search interface allows you to search for notes that contain specific keywords.

Supports use of hashtags (clicking on a hashtag will produce a list of all posts where that hashtag has been used).

Instructors can pin important Discussions for easier access from the Discussions page. 

Instructors can also link to specific discussions within pages or modules.

Instructors can pin important posts.

Posts can be tagged and organized into customizable folders and sub-folders. Clicking on a folder shows all the posts with that folder tag.

Discussions are organized into folders, such as week, unit, topic, group, etc.

Folders contain notes (i.e. posts and replies) and associated subfolders.

You can see how many times the discussion was viewed and by how many students by using New Analytics and navigating to the Resources Tab of the Weekly Online Activity.

For information about specific users, download the New Analytics Course Activity report.

You can see how many times each post was viewed.

Summary analytics available from the Statistics tab include: total posts, total contributors, average response time, post views, and individual student contributions.

Once enough students contribute to the Q & A, instructors can download these statistics at any time as a csv file.

The Readers option lists the names of people who have read a specific note and when.

Analytics for each user available from the Impact Report option include: time online, number of notes written,  number of replies, total number of words written, and number of notes read.

Users can configure notifications to receive e-mail updates when a new discussion topic is created in the course and/or when a new post is made to a discussion they are subscribed to.

Note: when an instructor creates a discussion, they are automatically subscribed to that discussion.  

Discussions can be ungraded or graded.

Graded discussions can have a rubric attached and can also be assigned for peer review.

Graded discussions can be viewed in SpeedGrader and grades will sync automatically with the Gradebook.

Instructors can 'endorse' student posts. However, there is no option to assign grades to posts within Piazza. 

To use Piazza participation to assign a grade in Quercus, instructors can create a No Submission assignment in Quercus to add a Gradebook a column for grades. 

There is no option to assign grades to posts within PeppeR. 

To use PeppeR participation to assign a grade in Quercus, instructors can create a No Submission assignment in Quercus to add a Gradebook a column for grades. 

You can create discussion forums for the entire class or for specific sections or groups.  

Groups can be created in Quercus using the built-in Group tool.

You can create discussions for the entire class or for specific groups. 

Groups are created directly in Piazza, either manually or via csv file.

You can create a discussion forums that are visible to the for the entire class or only to specific groups. 

Groups are created manually in PeppeR, using custom folder permissions.