Piazza

Piazza is a supported tool at MSU that helps faculty manage class Q&A efficiently. Students can ask questions and work together to refine their responses. Faculty members can answer questions, endorse student replies, and edit or delete any content as needed. The goal is to provide quick, high-quality answers. Piazza is integrated into D2L as an LTI tool.

To add Piazza to your course, follow the steps below:

1. Select the Content tab.
2. Within a module, use the Existing Activities dropdown menu.
3. Select External Learning Tools.
4. Click on Piazza.

Below are a few examples of how you might use Piazza in your D2L Course:

1. Ask questions! Ask questions on Piazza rather than emailing your instructor and TAs, so everyone can benefit from the response.
2. Edit questions and answers wiki-style. Think of Piazza as a Q&A wiki for your class. Every question has a single students' answer that students can edit collectively (and a single instructors’ answer for instructors).
3. Add follow-up comments or further questions. To comment on a post, start a follow-up discussion. Mark it resolved when the issue has been addressed, and add any relevant information back to the Q&A area.
4. Go anonymous. Shy? No problem. If your instructor has enabled the setting, you may be able to post anonymously.
5. Tag your posts. It's far more convenient to find all posts about your topic when the posts are tagged. Instructors can create folders. Click on a folder, or blue tag in a post, to filter all posts that share that tag.
6. Format code and equations. Adding a code snippet? Click the "pre" or "tt" button in the question editor to add pre-formatted or inline teletype text. Mathematical equation? Click the "Fx" button to access the LaTeX editor to build a nicely formatted equation.
7. View and download class details and resources. Click the "Course Page" button in the top bar to access the class syllabus, staff contact information, office hour details, and course resources.

Advantages:

• Free Q&A discussion tool that works in real-time. Ideal for large enrollments or combined discussions across sections.
• Searchable, student-driven, and instructor-controlled. Allows for private and/or anonymous posts, linking to existing posts, and marking questions as duplicates for merging together.
• Integrated into D2L, and works on desktop or mobile devices (iOS and Android).
• Community-managed questions and answers: Great for student-to-student collaboration, problem-solving, and exploration.

Disadvantages:

• Not integrated into the D2L Gradebook.
• Designed to create one Piazza Q&A discussion per course, per semester.
• Community-managed questions and answers: If your discussions tend to be independent activities or graded, D2L Discussions may be a better option.

Piazza prompts users to create a separate password to initiate their account. This password allows users to log in to the MSU Piazza account outside of D2L and with the Piazza Mobile App.

See Piazza Quick Steps for setup and management tips.

Looking for additional help? Check out Piazza video tutorials and quick start guide at the links below:

• Piazza Quick Start Guide
• How-To Videos

For further support, contact Piazza or the MSU IT Service Desk.