Piazza is a platform for student/faculty interaction that has several features not found in the Scholar discussion boards such as collaborative post editing, greater control over notification and display settings, and more robust statistics.  While anyone can use Piazza on an individual basis, it is also integrated with Scholar for ease of use.

To set up Piazza on Scholar, go into a content area and choose Piazza from the Tools menu.

Enter a descriptive name for your Piazza board.

Set the availability restrictions (the same ones as in all other Scholar tools), and click Submit.

The Piazza link will be created.  To create your course on Piazza, click on the link.

After a brief wait, you’ll be taken to the Piazza page.  Your class name and course number will be automatically transferred to Piazza.  You’ll need to enter the estimated enrollment for your course and select the term in which it’s being taught.  When you’re done, click Create Class.

If you’ve used Piazza before, you’ll be presented with a confirmation page.  If not, you’ll be asked to set a password. Set the password if you need to.  Either way, check the box to agree to the terms and click Continue.

You’ll be taken to your Piazza course.  While there is an enrollment box, you do not need to enroll your students.  They will automatically be enrolled once you click the link in your course.

Once you’ve got your Piazza course set up, you can get instructions on using the system at http://support.piazza.com/.