Creating Announcements

Text Box: When to send an announcement instead of private mail to everyone: • If you are sending a message that does not require a reply, send an announcement. • An announcement can be a reminder, a notification of a change, or something you only want posted for a specific amount of time.

To create an announcement, select Announcement under Course Tools in the Build or Teach tabs.

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Then click Create Announcement.

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There are three areas you must complete to create the announcement: Announcement Information, Recipients, and Delivery Dates.


Announcement Information


Two pieces of information need to be filled out under Announcement Information. The first piece of information is the Title. The title is very important, especially for archival purposes. For example, if you or students are searching for a particular announcement, the title is what you will go by without having to open each one. The next piece of necessary information is the Message. Decide what you want to explicitly and concisely tell students.

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Recipients


You must decide who is going to receive your announcement. You can select a particular role; for example, students or teaching assistants. Or you can send it to more than one role. If you want to send it to everyone, select the checkbox next to Select All Roles as shown in the following figure.

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Text Box: To determine whom to send announcements: • If the message is a student announcement, send it to all roles. Everyone needs to be aware of student announcements. • If it is a TA announcement, send it to other instructors and designers. Both roles need to know what the TA's are doing. • If the message is to other designers, then other instructors should know what is going on. • Instructor announcements generally only need to be viewed by other instructors. • Auditor announcements will most likely need to go to everyone except students.


Delivery Dates


The last piece of information you need to determine when creating an announcement is when you want the announcement to be available and for how long. The beginning date is important. You can set up your announcements ahead of time and they will appear on the date that you select.

If you want the announcement to be an archive for students, you should click Never as the end date. If you do not want it to be an archive, you can select a particular date when students are not able to view the announcement. This could be a useful award to students who view their course often — to let them know about pop quizzes or other course surprises.

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You also have the option to have the announcement pop-up as soon as the student enters the course. To do this, select the Also deliver as a pop-up message checkbox, as shown in the previous figure.

Note: Use the pop-up feature so students will see the announcement even if they are passive within your course.

When you have completed filling in all the information, click Send. If you click the announcement to edit it, make sure you click Send. If you click Cancel, you will lose the opportunity to edit the announcement.


Allowing Students to View Announcements


To allow students to view announcements, make sure you have announcements showing within the Course Tools.

To test an announcement, select My Courses at the top of the page and select the section again. This allows you to see what the pop-up announcement looks like.

Now you and your students can view and retrieve class announcements.