Announcements

Creating an Announcement

With the Announcements tool, you can post timely information critical to course success. On the Announcements page, you can add, edit, copy and delete announcements. This is an ideal place to post time-sensitive material including:

• Due dates for assignments and projects
• Changes to the syllabus
• Corrections/clarifications of materials
• Exam schedules

Any new announcements display as a pop-up when learners enter the course. After that, learners can access the announcement archive by selecting Announcements. 

Announcements help you share important information with others in your course. Unlike messages, announcements appear immediately when a learner opens a course. Learners are less likely to ignore the information you share in a course announcement because it demands attention before viewing course content. 

Course announcements can also be sent to learners via email. Emails for announcements are always sent and aren't controlled by the global notification settings. Instructors also receive a copy as the email is sent to all course members. In the email, embedded content appears as links. Learners can select the links to view the content.

Manage Announcements

You can view all your course announcements in one place. The Course Announcements page lists all announcements in your course, including each announcement’s status and number of viewers. You can create, copy, edit, and delete announcements on this page.

• Search or sort the list: You can sort announcements using the title, status, or number of viewers. If you’re looking for something more specific, use the search function to find announcements by title or message content.
• Create a new announcement: You can create a blank announcement or copy an existing one to use as a template.
• View the status: Announcements have three states: Posted, Scheduled, and Drafted. An announcement’s status is shown along with its content. You can view the number of course announcements by status at the top of the page.
• Manage announcements: You can edit or delete announcements from this page.

Active course announcements appear the first time each learner enters the course after the announcement is posted. Announcements appear before the learner can access the Course Content page. After the learner dismisses the announcement, it won’t appear immediately when the learner accesses the course in the future.

Active announcements also appear in the Today and Recent sections of the Activity Stream. The announcement disappears from the Activity Stream when the learner dismisses it within the course.

If an announcement is still active, learners can access the announcements they’ve dismissed. On the Course Content page, learners can select View archive to read past, active announcements in the course.

Reschedule Announcements 

To reschedule an announcement so that the announcement pops up on your students' screens when they enter the course, you can set the fields Show on and Hide on date fields for a future date. You can reschedule announcements without having to recreate them. Just change the Show on and Hide after fields to a future date.

When users first enter a course, the rescheduled announcement will trigger a pop-up.