Start from the homepage of a Brightspace course. To view the Discussions List for this course, select the "Course Menu" drop down, and then select "Discussions".

The Discussions List page displays all of the forums in this course, as well as all topics within each forum. To subscribe to a forum, select the little down arrow next to the title of a forum. Then, in the drop down that appears, select "Subscribe". See Customizing Notifications for help with customizing notifications.

Each forum is divided into topics. To subscribe to a topic, first open the topic by selecting its title.

On the View Topic page, select the "Subscribe" button with a star next to it underneath the topic title. See Customizing Notifications for help with customizing notifications.

Within each topic, users can create threads that others can reply to. To subscribe to a thread, first find it in the list of threads for that topic. Then, select the "Subscribe" button with a star next to it for that thread. See Customizing Notifications for help with customizing notifications.

When subscribing to an item, a popup window titled "Customize Notifications" will appear. In this window, you can choose what type of notifications you will receive.

• "Show notifications in navigation area only" means that subscription alerts won't leave Brightspace. They will only appear in the "Subscription alerts" menu at the top of the page (the chat bubble icon).
   
• "Send me an instant notification" means that you'll receive an email for each subscription alert. Note that this option only works if your notification settings for this course are configured to allow it. See Setting Notifications in Brightspace for help with setting up instant notifications.
   
• "Include in my summary of activity" will include all subscription alerts in your activity summary, if it is enabled for this course.

Select one of the notification methods, then select the "Subscribe" button to confirm.