About Link Sharing

Sharing links allow any user clicking the link to access the discussion with a specified role, without being invited to the discussion. They can be used to control when students are able to access a discussion, making them particularly useful when assigning tasks on Kialo Edu with a deadline.

Important Notes Regarding Link Sharing

• When sharing links are enabled, anyone – including those who are not signed in to Kialo Edu – can access the discussion by following the link. During setup, you can specify the role logged in users following the sharing link have in the discussion. If users are signed in, they are also able to contribute to the discussion in the ways that role allows (such as creating claims or comments if they have the Writer role). If users are not signed in, they are only able to view the discussion, unless the Instant Access Discussion feature is turned on.
• Link Sharing allows you to control when students can access the discussion by enabling or disabling the link. So long as students’ accounts have not also been invited to the discussion, the link is the only means by which their accounts have permission to view the discussion. Therefore, once the link is disabled, so is their access to the discussion. The link can be re-enabled at any time if required, such as to allow students to view Teacher Feedback or if they require an extension to their assignment.
  
• You can either share the link with students or a QR code which is generated during the process. The QR code, when scanned, will open the sharing link.
  • To open the generated QR code, click the QR code icon to the right of the sharing link once you have enabled them.
    
• If a discussion participant, who already has a role in the discussion, clicks a sharing link that is set to a higher role than they currently have (for example, if the participant is currently a Writer and the link role is set to Editor), they are promoted to the higher role while the link is enabled.
  
• If a discussion with Link Sharing enabled is cloned, it will be disabled in the cloned discussion. It can be re-enabled if desired.
  
• If a sharing link is embedded, any users viewing the embed also view the discussion as if they had clicked the sharing link. This can be used with your website or LMS platform to allow students to view or interact with the discussion without needing to leave the site or LMS. See Embedding a Kialo Discussion for further information on embedding discussions, or Using Kialo with Learning Management Systems for LMS-specific help with embedding discussions.

Reminder: If you want students who do not have Kialo Edu accounts to participate in a discussion, you should enable an Instant Access Discussion.

How to Enable or Disable Link Sharing

Note: To adjust settings for Link Sharing, you must have Admin permissions or higher.

Link Sharing is disabled by default.

To enable Link Sharing:

1. Click the Share button in the top-right of a discussion.
2. Check the Enable Link Sharing box to generate a sharing link.
3. (Optional): If desired, adjust ‘Writer’ to another role.

To disable Link Sharing:

1. Click the Share button in the top-right of a discussion.
2. Uncheck the Enable Link Sharing box.