Announcements are an ideal way to post time-sensitive information critical to course success, and to demonstrate instructor presence in your courses. Students see new announcements when they enter a course and will need to close the New Course Announcements window before they can view course content. Active announcements also appear in the Activity Stream.
Create Announcements
- From the Navigation bar select Announcements.
- At the top right corner of the Course Announcement page, select the Create Announcement plus sign icon.
- On the New Announcement page, in the Title field, enter a descriptive title for your announcement.
- In the Message text box, enter the information you want to send to students.
- Use the options in the message editor to format text, insert audio and video recordings, and attach files.
- You can use the Send an email copy to recipients for critical announcements.
- Students will receive emails at the address associated with their Blackboard account, even if they don’t log into the course.
- You can send an email copy for a scheduled announcement; however, the email will be sent roughly 15 minutes after the posting date and time.
- If you edit an announcement after posting it and select Send email copy to recipients and post it again, the email isn’t sent. You’ll need to send a new announcement.
- Use the Schedule Announcement > Show on / Hide on dates if you want the announcement to be visible for a specific time.
- When you schedule an announcement, a Show on date and time is required. You can optionally select the Hide on check box and select the date and time.
- On the Announcements page, the scheduled announcement appears with the Scheduled label in the Status column.
- Select either Save draft or Post. By selecting Post will post the message immediately.
How can I change the order of announcements?
In Blackboard Ultra Course View, announcements are displayed in reverse chronological order by default. This ordering ensures that the latest information is always the most visible to students, keeping them up to date with current course activities and updates.
Announcements cannot be “pinned” to the top of the list or manually reordered. If you have a key announcement that needs to stay at the top, consider periodically updating it. Even a minor edit, like changing a word or adding a space, will push the announcement back to the top of the list and display it in the Activity Stream. To maintain a history of documented communication between instructors and students, TCSG recommends copying an announcement instead of editing.
Can I copy announcements from Original to Ultra?
While direct copying from Original to Ultra is not supported, you can generate a user-friendly file of announcements from the Original course by utilizing MyReports. Please run the report titled “Announcement List for Specified Course [ALL COURSE VIEWS]” with the output selection set to XLS.
FAQs:
When I send an announcement does an email automatically get sent to the students?
- No. You must select Send an email copy to recipients below the editor.
Are announcements global for all my teaching courses or just a specific course?
- No. Announcements sent via a course go out to students in that course ONLY. Use Qwickly to send out announcements to multiple courses at once.