Ed is a discussion and Q&A tool designed to improve communication between instructors, students, and other staff. You can organize discussion threads into categories and sub-categories, answer students' questions or encourage them to help each other, and post course-wide announcements.
In this article:
Add Ed to your Content tool
Ed must be activated in your course because McGill has limited licenses available. Fill out this consultation form; specify that you want to add Ed to your course and include your course name and code.
The first time that you access Ed from the Content tool, you will be taken to the course Admin page, which includes general course settings, discussion settings, and advanced settings.
A good first step would be to update your Course information to accurately reflect your course Code, Name, Year, Term and Session. Click Save at the top-right when you are finished.
Your Ed course is unavailable to students until you select Activate at the top of your window. You can choose to activate your class immediately, or wait until later.
Navigate to your Discussions home page with the discussions icon on your toolbar.
You will be prompted to click Continue on the course set-up wizard. Use the wizard to customize and post a welcome announcement, which is an ice-breaker thread meant to introduce your students to Ed.
Click Post Announcement to continue. If you have already activated the course and added students, then they will receive an e-mail notification informing them of this announcement. Your welcome announcement will be pinned in the default General category.
Discussion threads in Ed are organized by category and subcategory. Click the Admin icon on your toolbar and select Discussion to create and edit categories for your course.
Students who access Ed from the Content tool can toggle open the discussions menu () and navigate to a specific category or subcategory. Here are the default categories in Ed and how they appear when viewing discussions:
Post a new thread
You and your students can use the New Thread button to create a new post in Ed. You can then choose to ask a question, create a post, or make an announcement (only available to instructors). You can also select a particular category or subcategory for your new thread.
You will also see the following options at the bottom of your new post:
Pinned: Anyone can pin their thread to appear at the top of the thread list in a particular category. Only the three most recent pins will be visible by default, until you click to show more. You can easily pin and unpin threads by clicking on the Pin button when viewing a thread.
Private: (Instructor only) Staff-only comments allow instructors, teaching assistants, and other staff members to privately communicate within discussion threads. These comments are not visible to students.
Anonymous: A student can choose to hide their name from other students, but it will always be visible to you and other staff members. These students will appear as an anonymous animal (e.g., Anonymous Zebra); click on this text or hover over it to reveal their name and e-mail address. You can also choose to hide your name from students and they cannot view your identity.
Anonymous: Anyone can allow anonymous comments on their thread. Once again, you and other staff members can view the names and e-mail addresses of all students.
Megathread: (Instructor only) Create a thread where all subsequent comments will be turned into a separate question. For example, start an "ask me anything (AMA)" thread where students can pose simple questions about your work experience. Their comments will be marked as questions and can be resolved individually.
Answer questions and post comments
Discussion threads can be filtered by course and by category. Pinned threads are put at the top of the list, and remaining threads are organized from most recent to oldest. You can also use the Search field to find a specific thread based on keywords, or Filter threads by category or other criteria (e.g., unread, new replies, starred, etc.).
The thread list shows the thread's title, category, author and the time since it was posted. Click on an individual thread in the list to view it and respond to it.
Threads with a blue dot are unread. These are threads that you have not seen.
Threads with a green tick are questions that have been resolved. This means that the question has already been answered.
Threads with a purple pin have been pinned. Pinned threads are generally reserved for announcements or important information.
Threads with a blue ribbon have been endorsed by you or other teaching staff. This icon can be used to distinguish high quality content.
Questions appear in the thread list with a question mark icon. Anyone can answer a question, and there is no limit on total responses.
You, other teaching staff, or the thread author can click the green checkmark beside an answer to accept the response and resolve the question.
Click on Add comment under a post or question to contribute an observation, reply, or ask a follow-up question. Comments should not be used to answer a question, as they cannot be checked off or approved to resolve the question.
Have a question that was not answered in this article? Visit our FAQs.
While this resource is accessible worldwide, McGill University is on land which has served and continues to serve as a site of meeting and exchange amongst Indigenous peoples, including the Haudenosaunee and Anishinabeg nations. Teaching and Learning Services acknowledges and thanks the diverse Indigenous peoples whose footsteps mark this territory on which peoples of the world now gather. This land acknowledgment is shared as a starting point to provide context for further learning and action.
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