Course Community goes beyond the discussion board. It's a full community environment where students and instructors can communicate, collaborate, co-create, write documents together, give and receive feedback — and make learning visible together.
Designed around how people actually learn together — not just how they submit assignments.
Rich threaded conversations with nested replies, markdown formatting, reactions, and instructor notes. Not a flat forum — a real dialogue.
DiscussionStudents ask, the community answers. Upvoting surfaces the best responses. Instructors and post-authors can mark accepted answers. Unresolved questions surface automatically.
Q&AVisual sticky-note boards with drag-and-drop positioning. Perfect for brainstorming, mind-mapping, idea generation, and collecting thinking from the whole class.
CollaborationShared Markdown documents the whole class can write together. Auto-saves as you type, shows who's currently editing, and detects conflicting changes. Creators can publish a document as read-only and anyone can download the raw Markdown file.
Co-authoringA community-curated collection of articles, videos, and tools. Anyone can contribute — making resource curation a participatory act rather than a one-way broadcast.
ResourcesA dedicated space for giving specific, public appreciation to classmates. Research consistently shows that recognition cultures improve motivation and belonging.
RecognitionQuick anonymous polls to check understanding, gather sentiment, or make decisions together. Results update in real-time as classmates vote.
EngagementA post type specifically for reflective writing — thinking out loud about the learning process, not just the content. Surfaces metacognition as a valued community contribution.
ReflectionInstructors see who's contributing, which spaces are thriving, unanswered questions, and — crucially — which students are quietly disengaged before it becomes a problem.
AnalyticsRun real-time response sessions during class or a conference. Instructors create sets of questions (multiple choice, rating scales, word clouds, or short text), open them one at a time, and reveal results on their own schedule. Public sessions generate a QR code so audiences can join from any device with no login required.
Live ResponseReal-time notification of replies, reactions, and mentions. A unified activity feed shows the full community narrative at a glance. Scoped per-course so notifications never bleed between sections.
AwarenessA full anonymous peer review workflow: instructors define prompts and configure how many reviewers each submission receives. Students submit text or files; the system load-balances reviewer assignments automatically.
Peer LearningA graduated, community-assisted moderation system. Students flag concerning content; instructors review a prioritised queue and choose a proportionate response — send a private note, hide, or redact. Every action is logged for accountability.
SafetyGiving feedback is one of the most powerful ways to deepen understanding. Course Community makes it structured, anonymous, and fair.
Reviewers can't see who submitted the work. Submitters can't see who reviewed it. Instructors can see everything. This mirrors validated academic peer review processes.
The assignment algorithm distributes reviews evenly across the class, so no student gets significantly more or fewer reviews than others — even in small cohorts.
Uploaded documents are stored outside the public web root and served only through a permission-checked PHP endpoint. Only the author, assigned reviewers, and instructor can download a file.
Instructors define the feedback prompts — so reviews are guided rather than free-form. Students respond to each prompt individually, keeping feedback specific and actionable.
Pose questions during a class, workshop, or conference. Students and audience members respond in real time. Instructors reveal results when they're ready.
Up to any number of options. Results display as a bar chart showing count and percentage per option. Great for comprehension checks, concept votes, or audience polls.
Configurable scale (1–5, 1–7, 1–10) with custom min/max labels (e.g. "Strongly disagree" → "Strongly agree"). Results show a histogram and the mean.
Each respondent contributes a word or short phrase. Results appear as a weighted cloud — the most frequent responses appear largest. Striking to reveal in front of a group.
Open-ended responses up to 500 characters. Results display as a scrolling list of all responses — ideal for reflections, muddiest-point prompts, or open feedback.
| 🔒 Course only | 🌐 Public | |
|---|---|---|
| Who can respond | Enrolled students (session required) | Anyone with the link or QR code — no login |
| Share method | Visible in student sidebar when active | Short URL (/p/XXXXXXXX) + auto-generated QR code |
| Deduplication | Authenticated — one response per student per question (updates on re-submit) | Fully anonymous — no tracking, no deduplication |
| Best for | In-class formative checks, exit tickets, Likert surveys | Conference workshops, open lectures, community events |
Moderation that empowers the community to flag concerns — and gives instructors measured tools to respond — without turning the platform into surveillance.
Send a message directly to the author without changing the content. The lightest touch — useful for guidance before escalating.
Removes the post or comment from view. Others see a neutral placeholder. The author sees their content and your explanation — and can still edit or delete it.
Replaces the body with "[Content removed by instructor]" while preserving the original server-side. The original can be reviewed and restored at any time.
Reverse any moderation action and return content to normal, or dismiss flags that turned out to be unfounded. Both actions are recorded in the audit log.
| Viewer | Hidden or Redacted Content |
|---|---|
| Other students | Neutral placeholder: "This content has been reviewed and is not currently visible." |
| Content author | Still sees their own content + an amber notice with the instructor's explanation. Can edit or delete at any time. |
| Instructor | Sees full content with a status badge, flag count, and moderation action buttons. |
The feature set is grounded in D'Arcy Norman's five-dimensional course design framework — The Teaching Game.
Multiple contribution modes give every student a meaningful way in — posting, replying, curating, recognizing, reflecting, submitting work, or giving structured peer feedback.
Votes, reactions, accepted answers, kudos, and structured peer feedback make contribution quality visible — both to individuals and to the instructor via the Community Pulse.
The community feed creates a chronological story of shared learning. Pinned and featured posts curate the most important moments in that story.
Purposeful spaces — Discussion, Q&A, Resources, Kudos, Collaboration, Peer Feedback — create distinct places with clear social norms and expectations.
Transparent roles, moderation tools, course-isolated sandboxing, and LTI-based authentication ensure the community operates within a coherent, trustworthy structure.
Course Community uses the LTI 1.3 standard to launch from Brightspace, automatically authenticating users and loading course context.
config.php.| Setting | Value |
|---|---|
| Login Initiation URL | https://sandbox.darcynorman.net/course-community/lti.php?action=login |
| Redirect URI (Launch URL) | https://sandbox.darcynorman.net/course-community/lti.php?action=launch |
| Target Link URI | https://sandbox.darcynorman.net/course-community/ |
DEV_MODE=true as an environment variable (or in config.php) to bypass LTI authentication entirely. A simulated instructor + student are created automatically — perfect for local development and demos.
No build tools, no npm, no containers required. Just PHP and a place to host it.
Open source, self-hosted, and yours to adapt. Start with dev mode to explore it today.