Yes, my thought was the same as Robyn's - you can always have a second sequence running which has just a single Forum in it (and *not* "lock when finished"). Students then access this from the list of Available Sequences in the Learner interface. This would work fine for simple contexts where you're using LAMS on its own, or separate from any other portal or LMS-like system.
Michael's comments go more to the heart of how LAMS integrates with related learning systems like portals/LMS. I think there will be a number of ways this will be done in the future, so I'm hoping that the next generation of LAMS (currently called V1.1, but in a few months we're going to rename this to V2.0 - fyi) will provide flexible integration options.
You can already see indications of this in the LAMS to LMS integrations we've done. Students click on a link in their LMS course page to jump straight into the relevant LAMS sequence; so you could have a second link to a LAMS Forum (running as a sequence with just one activity - Forum) on the LMS course page, and then you wouldn't need to ever see the "Available Sequences" page. I expect that as LAMS evolves, it will provide (at least) two options: a top level listing page (like Available Sequences) for those who use LAMS stand alone; and URL links to sequences that can be incorporated into the portal/LMS.
All this is applies to contexts where you want a Forum outside an individual sequence - such as a meta-level discussion area. I'd see this as different to Ernie's comments about non-sequenced Forums inside a sequence - which is also a great idea. I think this feature would be useful for when you want a Forum inside a sequence (ie, for discussion just about the sequence topic, not a meta-level discussion), but not within a structured flow of tasks. This would be particularly useful in contexts where students find too much structure to be constraining/limiting (I know this issue has come up with use of LAMS at Oxford).
Posted by James Dalziel
