Announcements

Announcements are a way to keep students informed of what is going on in the course.

You can use announcements to

  • remind students of upcoming events or deadlines
  • alert students to something new in the course
  • inform students of the location of extra course material

Announcements are available to students in the Announcements tab on the course navigation bar.

You can create and manage announcements by going to Manage > Announcements in the dashboard.

In addition, you can create an announcement-only group, and students can subscribe to this group to get announcements by email.

Create an Announcement

  1. Go to Manage > Announcements.

  2. Click Add Announcement.

  3. Enter a Title for your announcement.

  4. Enter text or other components for the Body of the announcement using the content editor.

  5. Announcements do not have to have dates, but adding a date can be useful. An announcement with a date gives a sense of breaking news. In addition, you can prepare an announcement ahead of time by dating it in the future and then making it public on that date.

  6. Associate the announcement with any labels, tracks, or languages that you have added to your course. By default, an announcement is available to students in all tracks and taking the course in all languages.

  7. Set the availability of the announcement. By default, an announcement starts out as Private; it has not yet been pushed to students and the site. You can use this to save a draft for later revisions or to prepare an announcement in advance of its release.

When the announcement is ready to be seen, change Status to Public. This will display the announcement in the Announcements tab.

If you have created an announcement-only group, don’t forget to copy and post your announcement to the group.

Manage Announcements

Go to Manage > Announcements.

In the list of existing announcements, you can

  • click the lock or the lock icon to toggle the announcement’s status:
    • A dark, locked lock indicates a private announcement (not visible in the Announcements tab).
    • A light, unlocked lock indicates a public announcement (visible in the Announcements tab)

  • click the lock icon to see the announcement as it appears or will appear in the Announcement tab.

  • click the announcement’s title to view and edit its details.

  • click the lock icon to delete the announcement. If you delete a public announcement, it will be removed from the tab.