Course Discord Instructions

We’ll be using Discord to interact with our peers and group members.

Discord is a platform for text chatting, voice chatting, and screen sharing.

1 Join the server

Join the Stat 331/531 Server to start experimenting with the interface.

When you join the server, you will be given some suggestions to get started.

A picture of the welcome page when you join the Discord server. The page has links to learn more aboud Discord, customize your server, invite your friends, download the desktop app, access Discord from your phone, and how to reach the help desk.

I recommend you click through these - and in particular, it is probably a good idea to download the desktop version of Discord, and perhaps to install it on your phone if you wish.

2 Set up your account

Verify your email

To use this Discord server, you must have a verified email.

Nobody (including your professors) will be able to see this email, and it does not have to be your Cal Poly email. This is simply to keep the server from being overrun by temporary accounts.

Create your identity

The first thing you should do is decide what name and picture you would like to use.

A gif showing the process of changing the name displayed on your account and the picture associated with your account.

I would like to strongly encourage you to use your real name and picture, so that everyone can get to know you. This also helps me know who I am talking to! However, if you prefer to remain anonymous, you are free to do so.

A gif of Regina changing the nickname of her Discord account to Gretchen Weiners, to impersonate her friend.

(Please do not be like Regina and use the name of another student, however!
This kind of impersonation will result in a permanent ban from the server.)

Decide about privacy and notifications

The default settings on the channel are probably just fine for you.
Feel free to make any changes that work for you, though.

You can change your message notifications:

A gif showing how to change the default notifications on the 'Notifications' and 'Text & Images' sidebars.

You can edit your privacy settings, although most things are already private:

A gif of changing the privacy settings on the 'Privacy & Safety' tab. The user is toggling between the 'Keep me safe', 'My friends are nice', and 'I live on the edge' options for whether DMs sent to you should be scanned for explicit content.

3 Using the Channels

The server is made up of many channels. Some are text chatrooms, while some are “Voice Channels” that connect you via audio to everyone else in the channel.

Text Channels

Use the #general channel for anything and everything:

A gif showing Regina (the user) posting a comment to the 'general' text channel. After Regina posts 'Hi Everyone!', Dr. Bodwin (her teacher) responds 'Welcome to Stat 431, Regina'.

If your question is about course logistics, rather than the material itself, consider using the #class-logistics channel:

A gif showing Regina navigating to the class-logistics text channel to ask a question--'What time are the work parties with the professors?'. Dr. Bodwin responds to Regina's message saying that the work parties are 'Mondays and Wednesdays from 2-4pm' and reminds Regina that she can 'Feel free to use this Discord channel anytime!'

You can use the specific weekly channels to ask questions about the material…

A gif showing Regina posting a question to the general-questions text channel, inside Week 0. Week 0 is shown as a subheading and general-questions is tab indented below Week 0, displaying that it is a channel associated with the Week 0 group. Regina asks 'So wait, is GitHub a programming language?', and Dr. Bodwin responds 'Good question, but no. GitHub is a website that is good for tracking changes'.

… or the specific lab assignment.

A gif showing Regina typing code in the lab-0 text channel. Regina uses the ` symbol (immediately below the escape key) to tell Discord that the text she is typing should be formatted as code.

Notice that you can use tick marks (```), like in Markdown, to make your code appear in a formatted code box.

Private messages

It is also easy to send private messages, to your professor or to each other. These private messages can also easily be used to launch a private video chat and / or screen sharing.

A gif showing Regina sending Dr. Bodwin a DM. Regina clicks on Dr. Bodwin's name in the lab-0 Discord channel, which prompts a pop-up to appear. Regina then types a message in the lower text box titled 'Note'. Once Regina hits enter to send her message, a new page opens displaying her conversation with Dr. Bodwin.

4 Creating your own server

Last but not least - for the teams you are a part of, you may want to use Discord to communicate with each other about the weekly assignments. You can do this by creating your own server! You can easily hop between servers during work parties, to ask each other questions or just to take a break and chat about life.

A gif showing the process of creating your own server. On the left sidebar, the square with a plus symbol (immediately below the icon for her Stat 431 server. When Regina clicks on the + icon, a box appears saying 'Oh, another server, hun?', with two options below it, 'Create a Server' (in blue) or 'Join a server' (in green). Regina clicks on the blue, 'Create a Server' button. After she clicks on this button a new pop-up appears asking her to enter the name of her server. Regina changes the name from 'Regina George's Server' to 'Mean Girls Only'. Once Regina has changed the name of her server, she clicks 'Create'. This takes her to her new Discord server. She then clicks on the link to invite people to join her server, which brings up a pop-up box with the HTTPS link she can give to her friends for them to join the server.