Crafting Questions for Online Discussions - this page is from Penn State University. It has some very good information on how to get started.
Teaching Critical Thinking Through Online Discussions - a PDF file. This is a very good article. Requires free Adobe Acrobat Reader. A web page of this article can be found here.
Taking discussion online - from Web Teaching at Dartmouth College (This is an EXCELLENT place to get information about how to teach online.)
Creative Use of Online Discussion Areas
Keeping Online Asynchronous Discussions On Topic
Expanding Class Discussion Beyond the Classroom Walls
Speaking in Voices: Effective Techniques for Keeping Web Discussions Running Smoothly
Book: Facilitating Online Learning: Effective Strategies for Moderators
Discussion Evaluation Rubric - On this page, you will find a rubric (scoring key) that will help you assess the participants of an online discussion.
Another possible use of online discussions that could be performed in classroom would involve the instructor asking a question and then asking the students to think through a possible answer and then discuss their answer with others in their group. Then each group responds to a Discussion Forum. The instructor then displays the answers on the screen for the class to discuss. Also, the instructor could ask each group to evaluate the answers provided by the other groups.