Announcements
View answers to frequently asked questions asked by NIU faculty and staff.
Announcements are an ideal tool for facilitating communication to students about time-sensitive material such as reminders about upcoming due dates, changes in the syllabus, and corrections or clarifications of material. This section will outline the steps necessary to create, modify, and delete Announcements.
Adding an Announcement
- From the Control Panel area, click Announcements.
- Click the Add Announcement button.
- Type in the Subject and Message.
- Set the availability options.
Notes:
- Selecting Yes to create a permanent Announcement automatically displays the Announcement after it is created. There is no end date for this Announcement unless the Display Until option is selected.
- Faculty have the ability to set up Announcements in advance and make them available or visible to students at the appropriate time by setting Display After and Display Until options.
- Click the Browse button to locate content in the Course to link to the Announcement (optional).
Note: If a link points to a content item that is not available, the link will not appear in the Announcement until the content is available. Removing the content will remove the link to the content in the Announcement but the Announcement itself will remain.
- Select the Email this Announcement checkbox to send an email version of the Announcement to all users.
Note: This option ensures that all users are aware of the Announcements even if they do not login to the Blackboard course.
- Click the Submit button.
- Students can view all the available announcements in the Accouncements section of the Blackboard entry page as well as in the Annoucements section inside their course homepage.
Note: For the faculty members all announcements (whether available to students or not) also appear in the Announcements section of the Control Panel. Announcements not available to students are grayed out and include a special reminder message.
Modifying an Announcement
- From the Control Panel area, click Announcements.
- Click the Modify button for the Announcement to be edited.
- Modify the subject, message, options, and course link as needed.
- Once modifications are completed, click the Submit button.
- The updated annoucement is displayed in the Accouncements section of the Blackboard entry page as well as in the Annoucements section inside the course homepage.
Note: For the faculty members all announcements (whether available to students or not) also appear in the Announcements section of the Control Panel. Announcements not available to students are grayed out and include a special reminder message.
Deleting an Announcement
- From the Control Panel area, click Announcements.
- Click the Remove button for the Announcement to be deleted.
- To confirm the deletion, click the OK button on the pop-up message.
Find more answers...
Are you looking for more information related to Blackboard communication tools? Review the answers to frequently asked questions regarding the communication tools in Blackboard. Also, consider attending one of the upcoming Blackboard workshops.
Last Updated: 05/22/2008
