Blackboard

Blackboard Communication Tools: Announcements

Each time students or instructors log into one of their classes in Blackboard the first page by default shows announcements. These are posted by course instructors (or sometimes by a network administrator) and can contain welcome messages, reminders, lecture notices, or other information that should quickly catch your students' attention. Announcements also appear on My Institution; in this case the page will contain announcements from all of the classes you teach or in which a student is enrolled.

Add an announcement - Instructors only

Announcements are associated with a particular class. If you wish to post the same message to each of your classes, you must log into each class separately to create announcements. Remember, you can always copy and paste the message from one class to another!

1. Go to Blackboard page for a specfic class. Then go to the Control Panel. From the Course Tools section, choose Announcements.
2. Click the Add Announcement button at the top of the screen.
3. Type in the subject of the announcement and then the content of the message. You can use HTML if you want to include a link to website in the message or to change the color of the text for emphasis--just be sure to select the radio button by HTML.
4. If you want the message to be permanent on the main announcement page for the class, select Yes next to Permanent announcement. The announcement will say Permanent and be on the course's announcement page every day. If you do not check the box, the announcement will be dated and only appear for its date.
5. Click Submit. You will see a verification screen.
6. If you want to edit that announcement or any other, click the Back button.
7. To edit or delete announcements, scroll down the Announcements page to see all of the announcements posted to the class:
   Note that in addition to the announcement itself is information about when the message was originally posted and when it was last modified.
8. Click Modify or Remove to make changes to the announcements.

Viewing Announcements

There are several ways to get to the announcements to view them.

• Log into a particular class to see only the announcements for that class--click on the Announcements button in the toolbar. Choose which announcements you want to view: today's, last week's, last month's, or all of them by clicking on your choice.
• From My Institution, either click more... under My Announcements or click Announcements under Tools on the left. This will show messages from all courses for which you are an instructor or all courses in which a student is enrolled. You can choose which messages to view (by day, week, month) as well as sort them by course. To sort by course, select the particular course whose announcements you want to see from the drop-down menu at the right of the screen:

• Each announcement also contains information about when and by whom the message was posted. If you view the announcements from My Blackboard, you will also see the course ID number in the header just above the announcement Subject.