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School-level feature — managed within your school portal at yourschool.deandesk.com.
Discussions give your courses and programs a built-in group chat. When you create a course or program, DeanDesk automatically creates a discussion group for it and adds the instructor as an admin. As students enroll, they are added to the discussion automatically — no setup required.

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How discussion groups are created

DeanDesk creates discussion groups automatically: Instructors are automatically assigned as discussion admins. Course assistants are also added as admins.
You don’t need to set up discussions manually. They are created as a side effect of creating courses and programs, and membership is managed automatically through enrollment.

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Accessing discussions

Click Discussions in the sidebar to see all the discussion groups you belong to. Select a group to open the conversation.

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Sending messages

  1. Open a discussion group from the sidebar.
  2. Type your message in the input field at the bottom.
  3. Press Enter to send.
Messages appear in real time for all members — no page refresh needed. You can also see when other members are typing.

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Discussion roles

Each member of a discussion group has a role that determines what they can do.
  • Course/program instructors are automatically assigned the Admin role.
  • Students are automatically assigned the Member role when they enroll.
  • Admins and discussion admins can promote members to moderator or admin.

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Custom discussion groups

School admins can create additional discussion groups beyond the auto-created ones.
1

Open Discussion Management

Navigate to the Discussion Management panel from the admin area.
2

Create a new topic

Click Create Topic. Enter a name and description for the group.
3

Set visibility

Choose Public (any user can join) or Private (members must be added by an admin).
4

Add members

Search for users and add them to the group. Assign roles as needed.
Custom groups can be organized by role (e.g., a teachers-only group) or for general school-wide discussion.

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Managing members

Discussion admins and school admins can manage group membership:
  • Add members — search for any user and add them to the group
  • Remove members — remove a user from the group
  • Change roles — promote a member to moderator or admin, or demote them back
For auto-created course and program discussions, membership stays in sync with enrollment. When a student enrolls, they are added; the group always reflects the current class roster.

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Notifications

When a new message is posted in a discussion, all other members receive:
  • Email notification with the sender’s name and a preview of the message
  • Push notification on the mobile app
  • In-app notification in the notification feed

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Best practices

  • Use discussions for ongoing conversation. Discussions are ideal for class Q&A, study groups, and collaborative problem-solving. For one-time important updates, use Announcements instead.
  • Assign moderators in large groups. For courses with many students, promote a trusted student or TA to moderator so they can help keep the conversation on track.
  • Keep custom groups focused. Create custom groups for specific purposes (e.g., “Faculty Lounge”, “Student Council”) rather than broad, unfocused groups that no one checks.