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Announcements

Why use Announcements?

The Announcements tool enables you to create announcement items that help communicate course updates, changes and new information to your students quickly and effectively. Announcement items appear in the Announcements widget, but students can also opt-in to receive announcements through instant notifications through email, SMS, and RSS feeds.

You can use the Announcements tool to:

  • Create announcement items containing important course-related information.
  • Alert students to a change in the schedule or an upcoming due date.

Create and Manage Announcements

The following video provides step-by-step instructions for how to create announcements in your course:

Note: Announcement items with availability restrictions will not appear until the specified date is reached.

  1. Find the Announcements Widget on the course homepage by selecting Course Home in the navbar.
  2. From the Announcements widget menu, click New Announcements Item.
  3. Enter a headline and content for your Announcements item.
    If you want to hide your headline's date and time, clear the Always show start date check box. By default, an Announcements item start date and time appears below the headline when displayed in the Announcements widget.
  4. In the Start Date and End Date fields, select the posting availability date. Announcements items publish immediately unless you specify an alternate start date from the Start Date.
    Note: Post-dated Announcements items do not display in the Announcements widget even if users have permission to see future Announcements items. They can be found within the list of Announcements items on the Announcements page.
  5. You can remove an Announcements item on a specific date by selecting the Remove Announcements item based on end date check box. You and administrators can still see the Announcements item after its end date, but it does not appear in the Announcements widget.
  6. In the Attachments section, add attachments, audio recordings, and video recordings as part of your Announcements item.
  7. To include additional release conditions, click Attach Existing or Create and Attach.
  8. To continue editing the Announcements item, click Save as Draft. Students cannot see draft Announcements items. To release Announcements items to users, click Publish.

  1. Click the Announcements widget.
  2. On the Announcements page, click the Announcements item that you want to edit.
  3. Edit your Announcements posting.
  4. To inform users of major changes and updates to postings that they might have dismissed, ensuring that those headlines reappear with current information, select the Major edit - send a notification and restore it for those who dismissed it check box.
  5. You can also make the edited Announcements posting reappear at the top of the Announcements widget by changing the start date to the current date and time.
  6. Click Update.

  1. Click the Announcements widget.
  2. Do one of the following:  
    • On the Announcements page, from the More Actions button, click Reorder.
    •  From the Announcements widget menu, click Reorder Announcements.
       
  3. Use the drop-down lists in the Sort Order column to select an item's order. Other items automatically reposition themselves according to the new order.
  4. Click Save.

Do one of the following:

  •     From the context menu of the Announcements item you want to delete, click Delete.
  •     To delete multiple postings, select the check boxes beside the Announcements item you want to delete. Click Delete at the top of the list.