In the class you can instantly ask a question. After class you might contact a TA or the instructor. Course forums provide something in between those two extremes. How did you find the experience of using forums?
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It was not bad. I personally went once or twice to check other people's posts. Did not have a problem with it and was not a big fan of it cause no one would actively go about to see if someone asked the same question they did so they will just ask it regardless. That is reword, not very efficient. Instead asking questions in class, in front of the whole class is much more beneficial. The whole class is engaged and this assures that no rework, plus discussion will enhance student understanding. I would suggest adding a discussion period in class. 
The grade assigned to forum participation was a great motive to participate.
I found asking questions in the forum easier and more effective than asking questions by email but not as effective as asking questions in class.
The forum postings were useful in preparing for the midterm and while doing assignments. The anonymous feature is not necessary in my opinion since all the questions are class related. 
I personally did not like using the forums, I am more about meeting with the instructor / TA to discuss my questions. Instead of cancelling the lecture on Wednesdays, we could have used that time as a tutorial class to discuss questions as a group. During class time we were too rushed and focused on completing the class activity and did not really have time to ask questions.
 
I did not find the forums useful at all because I did not have time to scroll down to see what questions mattered to me the most. I was also afraid that if i asked a question it would be go unanswered as some of them did during the term. A student's time is really precious especially last year students and that is why I contributed very little to the forum because i did not have time to go back and forth to see if my question was answered. If there was student teacher interaction then my question would be answered in less than 5 minutes after class and i would go on doing my other business. 
I think its a very useful and convenient tool which helped me as a student to learn while keeping up with the course material
I did not use the forums until I started studying for exams. I also did not look at the forums through the duration of the course.
-It was alright but I didn't really use the course forums since I personally don't like learning through course forums. The anonymous posting feature was alright but I did not  make my forum postings anonymous. The helpfulness of other student questions and answers was helpful but I felt like the exercises, the video lectures, and the textbook was more than enough to comprehend the material. 
It was definitely helpful. Even if I didnt post as much as other people did, I found the forum really helpful since students had the same questions as I did. Other students also asked questions that I did not even consider (which was probably due to my lack of deeper understanding of some of the course contents)which reinforced my understanding of the course contents.  The forum also saves time from emailing the course instructor or TA's and waiting for their reply.
I did not use the forums often. I found that between the textbook, videos and in class discussions were sufficient.
I felt that the course forms were some what helpful. I would personally find it easier and find an answer replied back from a TA or Prof more creditable.  The 5% for posting seems fair, but could be allocated somewhere else, this should be optional. 
The anonymous posting feature makes it easier to post as one can be a little less self-conscious. I did not find that it augmented much to my study of the course material. It is uncommon in other courses so it often slipped my mind to check the forum.
Having access to course forums to see other students questions was helpful. I think a smaller number of grades should be assigned to posting because it prevents students from posting in the forum solely because they know they have to.
I never really had the need to use them. I understood everything taught in the videos and never felt the need to ask for clarification.
I find that using forums is a lot easier and better to use than contacting a TA or the instructor. Although I did not post anything on the forum, I found it very useful as others would pose questions similar to what I have in mind. The responses from other students was also very helpful.

Reading the forums was useful when obtaining extra information about the course. I would browse through some of the content and find things that I did not understand and some of the video links to extra explanations were helpful too. I did not actively post when I had problems as it was easier to ask my peers in person first and this was quicker than posting.
Grades assigned to posting was good as it forced me to look at the forums and in turn get some useful information out of it, getting students started on the forum will encourage further participation as everyone is asking questions and replying. So the assignment of grades is good in my opinion.
Most of the time students had the same problems, and forums were the best place to look for solutions. It really helped me clear some very basic concepts.
The idea of using the number of posts for grading is valuable, as none all of the students are used with this kind of participation, so it forces them to think about how to interact with others. My goal was talk about something that could be helpful not only for me, but for most of the students. I think the use of online forums also helps to manage the class time, as most of the questions can be done at a different time, and they were always promptly answered.
I personally did not find the forum as useful as I thought I would but knowing it is available really put me in ease. I realized that I read most of other students questions and answers in the forum which helped me clarify few things. 
I liked the idea of being graded for posting a question or comments regarding the course because it motivated me to actually make comment or browse around to see other students comment
I really appreciated the anonymous posting feature because I was afraid the question I post is probably not relevant to the topic or I am completely wrong.  
Overall, the forum was well formatted for students to interact and communicate. I wish most of the engineering courses allowed us to communicate through similar forums. 

To be honest, i did not use the forums much. The videos were very clear and concise and gave me most of the information i needed to understand the concepts. If I needed further clarification, i would use the textbook available for us. Other than that, I would just ask friends as a last resort. 
I used the forum very little. There was a lot of time in class to ask any questions I had
I normally don't like using the forums, I find it much more helpful to ask someone in person. I do think it is a good feature to have
Forums were a great way to ask questions when needed. I didn't use them very often though, but I can see their value when you're having trouble.
Forums are very useful when I need several different ideas. As for discussing the projects, it is a very convenient to use forums. It also records the discussions of other people's topics. I could find some useful information there. 
I rarely contact TA's or instructors unless there is something my classmates cannot answer easily. Forums are fine for the purposes of this class. It is very useful to learn about and be able to navigate forums for technical support outside of the classroom.  
The forums are sometimes helpful in terms of explaining complex concepts. At other times, the topics being discussed can be explained better by the videos or the TA/instructor. The anonymous posting feature is very useful. There should be no grades assigned to posting as this keeps the forums cleaner and less cluttered with comments.
The forums are really helpful to provide students the chance to ask questions anonymously too. I don't think grades should be assigned for posting. me and other people felt the pressure to post something on the forums when they should be somewhere that you can get help from when you need. I understand that grades were assigned to posting to get more student to post, but I feel like it is hard to used to it when we went through 3 years and half of not using forums people rarely use it on avenue 
I did not ask any questions on the forums. However, I did read over the questions others asked. The forums are a great way for students to have their questions answered by the instructor. This is specifically because of the anonymous posting feature. Students who would normally fear judgement can freely ask questions without that fear. These questions and answers have been great both in helping me learn and reiterating what I have learnt. The grade attached to the forum postings is also a good way to encourage questions to be asked. The more questions and answers on the forums, the greater the learning experience is for everyone in the class. I believe keeping the grade assigned to the postings should be kept for future years. Overall, the forums have been excellent towards the learning process.
Helpful, because of the number of active members (both students and teachers) getting a response was usually quicker. 
I'm personally not a huge fan of posting in the forums, although I do like the idea of getting insight into problems other people are having with the materia. One thing I felt with the grades attached to postings is that a lot of people were posting things just for the marks rather than for the sake of discussion. 
I personally found it useful; I found myself asking questions outside the scope of the class, and appreciated Kevin's responses; I felt some other student questions were challenging and forced me to think, but I thought a majority were quite simple --- posted to get the marks.
Concept of using forums allowed many students to voice their concerns anonymously (which was a great feature) and wide range of topics were covered which allowed positive criticism.

Personally, I prefer to ask questions in class or discuss with TA, but I strongly agree to the use forums, because I refer to them to learn something new or read threads for different views.
What I like about the forum feature is that I can see what other people ask in the forum. Sometimes, I could just look at the forums and find the answer to my question instantly, which helped me a lot. 
I think using the forums is a way to communicate, but it is hard to adapt it at the first time, because you are not sure how fast the TA or the instructor or other student will response to the forum, and when is urgent it is hard to get answer instantly. I like the anonymous feature a lot, so it can kind of avoid people think that I am asking a stupid question in a way, and it makes me feel more comfortable commenting post or asking question on the forums.

We are the first year experience using online forums, so I think a number of 5 is reasonable, but however, a lot of people end up posting a lot of post on give an example of bad plot and post 5 graphs on that and done with their participation.

I think we have to find a way to make sure the post are quality and not redundant and I think we have to make sure that we do not post on forums just because there is grade associate with it. We can do posting on maybe design your own assignment question and pick 1 or 2 questions from student and earn participation grade in this way will be more fun and student will put in more effort.
The forums were good. If I had a question, I was able to check the forum to see if the question had already been asked while to potentially have the question answered immediately if it was already asked. 
To be honest, I did not take advantage of the forums. I do think that having the class forum is a great idea.
Not as effective as contacting a TA or instructor. I think this feature could be better utilized with more assignments or more time to prep for quizzes. 
I liked the forums when you had a general content question. Many of my peers were able to give me their thoughts on how they understood the concept, which was helpful. However, some questions which were directed more towards Kevin specifically were easier to ask in class. I think the number of grades assigned to posting was fair because it forced us to utilize the forum and integrate it into our learning. 
I had to get used to using a course forum, although we have discussion boards on avenue they are not encouraged as much as they are in this course.
I think sometimes it gets confusing when students try to answer other student's questions, but they may not fully understand the concept. (I'm not saying they shouldn't, as any feedback is usually helpful when have asked a question) It's good that the instructor responds actively or clears up issues when needed though.
Maybe for next year TA's could be more active in the forum? That might be helpful when students are struggling with concepts.
Forums were most helpful during the DOE project, getting feedback on our group's idea was good before starting our experiment.
Assigning grades to forum posting was a good idea as it encouraged students to use them.
The anonymous feature is good for student's who are very shy. 
I liked that the forums were available to us to use, but I did not really like that the postings were mandatory. I think that there should be two marking schemes, one where a bonus is given for people who choose to post, and a separate one where people who choose not to post are not penalized.
The Anonymous feature is useful, I feel like that helps students who wouldn't normally ask a question get feedback on what they are unsure about. I still like the ability to ask the instructor in class, especially since normally the questions you have pertain directly to what you are doing, so asking in a forum later isn't really helpful. It may be a better use of a resource if there were more time to watch the videos, because then people might take the time to ask the questions as they are watching them. 
I thought the forum was good for when you wanted clarification on a topic as student responses were usually helpful and quick. I feel the anonymous option contributed to more people asking questions and discussing on the forum, as some people want to ask questions or discuss certain topics but don't want to identify themselves. I think the grades received for posting on the forum is appropriate.
Although the course forum posting was a meaningful way to address questions, I had a few concerns:

Advantages:
- Anonymous feature was good (although I never felt the need to use it)
- Help from other students was really meaningful, and motivating as well
- Grades for forum posting are a good way to keep check such that everyone poses questions.

There was a single thing which I didn't like about the forum posting was that the question asked is not answered instantly which is quite understandable considering the online structure (although it was mostly answered ASAP). Another way to go about it would be to start every lecture with questions about the previous videos (sort of in class Q & A).
I was nice sometimes to ask questions and get quick responses from different people, but I personally didn't use them to their full extent as I often study with other people and would just ask them a question in person. If not, I usually saved it for the next class, where I could ask a friend or the professor directly.
Even though I did not use forums in the best way possible, I am sure that it was helpful to students in getting different feedback from classmates, which helped them to clarify any doubts or concerns they had about the topic covered in class. I also like anonymous feature and grading was appropriate regarding the number of forum postings. Forums was a great way to interact with people online regarding any topic related to the course or outside. 
The anonymous posting was convenient. The general forum postings at the beginning of the term, i.e. introductory and bad plots, were appreciated, for generating marks, especially for someone who did not have many questions during the term. It took some time to get used to checking the forum postings frequently, since with Avenue to Learn, I got used to ignoring forum postings altogether.
The forums were useful because it helped me understand concepts that I did not understand through it - student questions and answers. 
I personally liked the discussion forum postings, as sometimes we can come up with questions last minute and the probability of getting the TAs to answer us is really small. The anonymous option is a great way to encourage students to post questions that they wouldn't ask in class. I found that the discussion forum was really helpful since we are all students and may have similar questions that we wanted to ask. Moreover, we can learn a huge deal from other student's questions as well. Maybe the overall grade percentage allocated for the forum posting should be increased to encourage more students to post questions/answers. 
I found the anonymous feature to be very useful as it allowed me to ask questions without having the fear of being judged by my classmates on whether the questions was irrelevant or not. 
The answers provided by the students helped me understand better as the answers were provided in simpler wording. 
I found the commenting to be more of a task than something I actually used to get answers for myself. If I have questions I am more likely to ask someone I know rather than post on the forums. 
The forum is extremely useful for communication with the rest of the class - in my experience the most useful and involved portion of the forum was the discussion and 'brainstorming' about different people's projects. 

However, when it comes to questions about course content, etc, the most useful response was (generally) that of the instructor. Further, in terms of easy of use, in-class discussions either with classmates or with the instructor proved to me of much more value to myself. 

The assignment of grades to forum postings did not appear to be very effective in stimulating forum discussions, and if anything encouraged sub par discussion submissions. 

However, in terms of design and use, the Coursera discussion forum is excellent. Well-designed, easy to add lots of multimedia, etc to the posts and make well-constructed posts. 
Other students questions and answers were definitely helpful.Sometimes other people ask the same questions before you ask and you can just read through the answers.Grading the number of posted should have motivated my frequency of posting.But I still did not post that much.A lot of the questions I had,were already in the forums and I did not want to repeat the same questions.But grading should be continued.Its just mostly lack of efficiency in part.But sometimes it felt like one more thing to do.In an already packed schedule.
Forums were good to an extent. When more than one person is unclear about something I rather a direct answer from the prof over another student.
-the anonymous posting allowed students to post questions with out the worry about people thinking you are an idiot by asking questions they might find stupid.
-grades per posting seemed fair
-the forum allowed questions to be answered at times when TAs or the prof was busy
The forums were a great way to learn something which was not clear during the lectures or videos. I believe every class should have a discussion forum, as alot of students do not like to ask questions in class. Posting anonymous questions eliminate any good or bad questions asked. 
It added a bit more convenience to getting certain questions answered without having to bother the instructor.
Great. However, it would be more helpful if Prof or TAs will answer questions or comment on posts too. I know it is hard kind of job because of lots of posts but if it is done it would be so fantastic and also constructive.
- I liked the forum experience in general, but like most things they are good in the beginning but become a gimick by the end. I think better approach should be taken to engage people in the forums. The 5 post rule was a great start, but other methods could be used to engage the students even more. For example weekly trivia, which awards bonus marks. 
That really helped a lot. We can post any query we have in our mind about the course content and many people respond and help us.
I never used the forums (in fact I'm forfeiting 2% of my overall grade) for this class.  I imagine that for those that use and actively participate it is a really useful tool for the class, but I think that 5% participation is far too much.  To still have an incentive for participation but not affect those who do not wish to do so, I would have the marking scheme set up so that if you do participate you can get those free 5% and everything else is weighted to 95%, while if you don't the class assignments, tests, etc are out of 100%. 
Though I did not post extensively myself on the forums, I had a few questions answered just through a peer asking the same question. The anonymous feature is nice and let's people who are not comfortable to post have the privacy to ask without being identified. Overall I believe that the forums were a great idea and created an extra platform for communication between students and the instructor. The grades assigned were fair and also provided initiative to participate in actual discussions on the forums. 
I didn't see a point to the Anonymous feature since anyone that wanted to be anonymous from the start wouldn't use their real name when signing up.I personally did not use the forums much because I had no questions that could only be answered by posting on the forums.

I heard (this could be completely wrong) that you do not get forum posting marks for creating threads. That seems like a flawed concept because less threads would be created and so students have less threads to reply to in the first place. However, if what I heard is wrong, then I have no issues with the discussion forums.
I enjoy the option of having a forum posting, but I disagree with the fact that the students were graded on posting on the forums. For someone like myself, who rarely asks questions (and doesn't need or desire to most of the time), forcing me to ask questions becomes a waste of time. Trying to come up with a decent question which is reasonable, and won't make me sound like a complete idiot, becomes a hassle (not to mention the fact that most of the questions I came up with I already knew the answer to...).
I did not use the forums very often.  Whenever I ran into questions or problems I would talk to my peers about it in person.  I think I would have used the forums a lot more if I didn't know people in the class or if I lived far from school so therefore couldn't regularly get together with friends to work on assignments and problems. 
I did not really use the forums. Question were mostly answered through videos and peers.
The forums were a useful addition to the course. Having the ability to check the postings to see if a question you had was already addressed by someone else was helpful. Also, looking at what other people were asking brought up new questions that I wouldn't have otherwise considered. Having the grade incentive was good, it encouraged people to asking meaningful questions and answers on the forums, which  others could access and learn from.
I never really got into posting anything on the forum but I found that a lot of the questions I had were already answered there. I think it helped in getting information about the course without having to directly contact anyone. The anonymous feature in my opinion is also a good idea. 
Unfortunately, I think the forums were a little quite, even though the class was relatively large. Rewarding marks for posting is okay, it encourages activity, but I feel most people didn't bother posting anything once they got their 5% early on. Since there were 5 sections covered in the course, you could only allow 1% per post in each section.  

The anonymous posting feature is nice, I saw it being being used quite frequently and used in once myself.
They were useful. It helped us to know the idea and question of other students. However, I checked the forums when I had a question or problem.
Using the forums cleared up many unclear subjects in the course and it also helped me learn more about the material through the questions asked by my colleagues on the forum. Moreover, the anonymous posting feature made us students feel more comfortable in asking any questions even if those questions were easy.
I usually consulted my friends about questions I had and was able to find a solution/answer that way. However, the postings on the forum were helpful since I shared some of the questions as those who started a thread. In addition, there were some questions that I had never thought about before which I see as an additional benefit of having a forum available to students.
Posting the questions on the forum is a very effective way to learn the course material.
The forum was a great idea in terms of communication, however due to the 5%  given for the posts, i found  there were a lot of useless posts on there. While I understand students may under use the forum without motivation, it just feels like there are too many fluff posts. 
the forums are useful. Sometimes I am not clear about something I always can find out someone in the forum that answering my questions. Also the anonymous posting feature is good please keep that.