To tag or not to tag?

Roxanne Farrar (LA 128: The Body As Art: History of Tattoo & Body Decoration) asked:

I've been tagging everyone I reply to, is that correct to do?

My response:

Tagging is a relatively new tool in our LMS, and we're still learning about how best to use it. The idea, of course, is to draw someone's attention to something you want them to see.

• For a student, tagging is the only way to explicitly let someone know you've responded to them. Tagging sends a notification to the "taggee."

• However, as an instructor, pretty much everything you do in an online class generates a Notification. Open the Settings menu under the Notifications bell icon (top of the page) to see a list of all the instructor actions that trigger notifications.

   View a screenshot...

  

Here's the thing, though: when you respond to someone's comment, the person who receives the automatic notification is not necessarily the person made made that comment. It's the person who made the post to which that comment is attached who will receive notification.

This means that if you respond to someone's comment — and that person is not the same someone who made the original post — the only way to trigger a notification to the correct individual is to tag him or her.