Discussions in a classroom are an important ingredient of teaching. By participating in a discussion, students think actively and therefore get a deeper understanding of the subject.

In a virtual classroom environment, such discussions may be simulated by the various communication facilities (message boards, documents, individual messages). In fact, this simulation has its advantages over real-classroom discussions:

In a written discussion, students have more time to think, resulting in deeper discussions. Also, the written archives can help everybody, including those who did not participate actively, to follow the discussion.

Discussions in WIMS virtual classes can be carried out in two different ways.<ol>

<li>In discussion forums.<br/>
The teacher can ask a question to start the discussion, by posting a message to the class forum. Students give answers to the question by posting followup messages. This is suitable for subjects with bulky comments/answers, or those for which a large number of participations are anticipated.

<li>In class documents.<br/>
The teacher can create a document, and configure it so that students can post comments to (but not to modify) it.

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In order to encourage student participation in the discussions, it is recommended that student participations be graded, with each pertinent answer/comment giving rise to a certain number of points to its author(s).