User Guide

Creating a Private Journal

A private journal is a blog which is configured as a private writing space that only an individual student and the instructor can see.You can create a private journal by adding and configuring a blog content type within any content area in your course or organization (such as Assignments or Course Documents), and selecting the Private Journal option as the blog type when creating the blog.

1. Enter a course.
2. Select a content area item, such as Assignments or Course Documents.
3. Click the EDIT/VIEW link
4. On the Create Blog page, enter a name in the Name field.
5. Enter a description in the Description field.
6. Select the Make the blog available option.
7. Select Private Journal as the Select the blog type option.
8. When selecting members, select the All Students options.
9. Determine whether students should be able to see instructor's entries and enable or disable this setting accordingly.
10. Consider changing other options to suit your particular usage.
11. Click the OK button to crate the private blog.

Under these settings, students will only see their own entries in the journal and will be unaware that other students are posting into the same space.

The instructor can see all of the students' work in one place. To see everyone's work at once, choose the All Authors option. This will chronologically display all entries by all students in the blog. If you want to view just one student's work, use the select box on the right side of the action bar. It shows a list of all of the people who have posted in the journal, along with the number of entries they have made. To see everyone's work, choose All Authors option.

Note: There is a second way to configure a private journal -- follow the instructions in the Creating an Individual Blog topic and use the date ranges to exclude other students in the course from seeing the entry. Also see the Creating Blogs and Journals topic.