Piazza - How To

Piazza is an FERPA-approved, extremely searchable online discussion board that works extremely well for asynchronous Q&A. We’ve adopted it for all classes in our program and it should already be in the navigation panel for your course instance. If not, a guide is in the next section. Piazza is quite powerful, and you may elect to use some of its more advanced features in your classes, but to just get you started, here’s what you need to know… NOTE: You can also read the Piazza support documentation for more information.

Table of Contents

Adding Piazza to your class’ Navigation Panel
Starting a new Class instance
Enrolling Your Students (and TAs)
Recommended Settings
Introduction Thread
Piazza Q & A
Piazza Groups
Piazza Resources

Adding Piazza to your class’ Navigation Panel

To add a Piazza link to the course Nav bar…

  1. From your course Nav bar, click “Settings”
  2. In the “Apps” tab, search “Piazza”
  3. Click it and “+Add App”
    Name: Piazza
    Consumer Key: oregonstate.edu
    Shared Secret: piazza_nk8-6df4
    NOTE: Make sure to check the box which shows “Show in Course Navigation”

Starting a new Class instance

To begin a new class instance, click the Piazza link in the navigation sidebar for your class. If no class instance yet exists, you should see a screen similar to this:

Piazza Setup Page

The top half of the “OR” is where you create a new class. I recommend filling out more intuitive course Name and Numbers (these are visible to students, so simplicity is important) rather than using the defaults. For this example I would enter “Intro to Computer Networks” for the Name (rather than the all-caps version here) and “CS 372” for the number. If there are multiple sections, I would include that as well (e.g. “CS 372_400”). Use the catalog max capacity for your Enrollment estimate.

Enrolling Your Students (and TAs)

Now that you have a class instance, you should make sure all your students are enrolled. If you use Piazza for official announcements or assignment clarifications, this is mandatory.

  1. Get a list of student emails from Canvas.
    The simplest mechanism for this is to go to Gradebook and Export a CSV file, then open in a spreadsheet editor and select & copy the column with all student emails (“SIS Login ID”).
  2. Provide this list to Piazza
    Back in Piazza, in your brand new course instance, click “Manage Class” at the top, then scroll down to “Enroll Students”. Paste the email list directly into the box and click “Add Students”.

That’s it! The students will receive an activation email and will be able to access Piazza from within their Canvas course. NOTE: If you have TAs you want to enroll in the class you should paste their emails into the “Enroll Professors/TAs” box.

We have found the following Class and Q&A Settings to be the best fit for most classes in the program and recommend you use the same:

  • Instructor Self-Signup
    Disabled (If you want to add additional instructors/TAs, you can do it in a batch, rather than having them do it and individually approving them).
  • Posting Anonymously
    Enabled (Students from disadvantaged groups in CS have an increased tendency to post questions when given the option to do so anonymously)
  • Folders
    A minimal organizational structure may be most relevant (logistics, homeworks, discussions, exams), unless you have mandatory discussions
  • Email settings (Accessed from the “Settings” wheel in the top-right)
    We don’t have a recommended setting here, but you should be aware that Piazza allows you to setup how/when/if you receive emailed notifications of Piazza activity, and this is where you set that up.

Introduction Thread

Online engagement best practices inform us that an introduction thread is important for building a constructive online learning environment. Piazza is the ideal place for us to do this. At the beginning of each term you should post an introductory thread and request that students post replies. I recommend attaching a photo of yourself and writing your own introduction here even though you’ve provided an Instructor Introduction video in the Canvas course. You should also keep up with the student posts and respond to at least a few. Both of these will show that you’re engaged in the forum and that you’re an active resource for them to utilize.

Piazza Q & A

The “Q & A” section is your bread and butter here. This is where students ask questions and you have the opportunity to answer them or allow other students to do that. I also recommend getting your TAs involved in the forum. Here are some key points for the Piazza Q & A Section.

There are three types of Piazza Posts

  • Question
    Questions are normally used by students. There are two “Formal” feedback boxes, plus the standard Followup Discussion responses. The “Student Answer” can be written and modified by all students in the class and can only occasionally be relied on for solid answers. The “Instructor Answer” is only accessible to you or your TAs and you should always make sure that questions have correct “Instructor Answers” - even if it is just a reference to a Student Answer or Followup Discussion.
  • Note
    Notes are the default post type. They are essentially standard discussion threads and Followup Discussion responses to them can be up to two levels deep. If you are posting a note, I recommend selecting a Folder which is most applicable to the information you’re presenting
  • Poll/In-Class Response
    The in-class poll can be used to gather information quickly of the entire class, without the overhead of managing a Canvas poll.

Piazza Groups

Groups in Piazza are more annoying to create than in Canvas. The creation mechanism is in the “Manage Class” subsection under “Create Groups”.

  1. Create Groups
    Calculate the number of groups you’ll need, then create them in “Enable Group Based Discussion”
  2. Add students
    I recommend using Canvas to generate groups, then pulling the emails from Canvas and pasting them into the Piazza “Manage students in this group” individually.

Piazza Resources

Piazza has the ability to serve as a repository for course materials (Homework assignments, solutions, lectures, etc). I don’t recommend using this, since we prefer to keep as much information in the Canvas page as possible so information drift can be limited, but if you elect to post this information in Piazza that’s fine.