by S Moodle.
I've also found (thanks to a response to a similar question on the 'forums' forum) that a 'Q &A' type of forum does exactly what I want it to do!
Sorry for the zombie thread, but I would also love a public assignment feature rather than using a forum.
There is no way to set a due date on a forum assignment that will up in upcoming events/calendar etc. Plus grading is not as easy in the forum as opposed to the assignment module.
So I use a the every posts a single discussion thread and use that.