KBA Contents
Creating an announcement
1. On the navbar, select Announcements.
2. Select New Announcement.
3. In the Headline box enter a descriptive subject or headline (ex. “Welcome to the first week of class, {firstname}.”)
Pro Tip: You can use replace strings (special text set in curly brackets such as {firstname} in the example) in the headline and/or in the body of the announcement to personalize your announcement. Read how to customize material with replace strings.
4. Click in the text box and enter the body of your announcement.
5. Use the Brightspace editor to format your text and add links to material found in other parts of the course (ex. Use Insert Quicklink to insert a link to your course syllabus already uploaded in Content), if desired.
6. Optional: Change the Start date (the date the announcement first appears to students) and End Date (when students can no longer see the announcement), and add any desired attachments and release conditions.
7. When your announcement is ready, select Publish. Your announcement will appear in the Announcements widget on the course home page, in the Announcements tool, and will be emailed to the entire class list. Announcements are emailed by default when published (or on the Start Date, if the start date is in the future).
Note: An announcement created when a course is set as "Inactive" will be saved in the Announcements tool and will appear in the Announcements widget (if used), but will not be emailed. See more information about activating your course.
Announcements created before the start date or after the end date of the course also do not get emailed. See more information about the course start and end dates.
If you create an announcement before the course is active and/or before the start date of the course, set the start date of the announcement to a date when the course will be active and after the start date of the course and an email will go out on the start date of the announcement.
Copying announcements to another course
Method 1
When you use the Import/Export/Copy Components function to copy course material from one course to another, you can select to copy all or some of your announcements to the new course.
Method 2
You can also copy announcements individually from within the original course. This is particularly useful when teaching two similar courses, or sections of a course, at the same time.
1. In the original course, in the Announcement tool, click the announcement's context menu and select Copy to Other Courses.
2. Optional: In the Copy Announcement window, select Publish Announcement on Copy if you want the announcement to be automatically published in the destination course (or courses) when copied, skipping the draft stage. If the check box is not selected, the announcement copies as a draft into the destination course or courses.
NOTE: If the destination course is open and active, an email will be sent to the entire class list of the destination course for every new published announcement added to the course in this method. The email be sent as soon as the copy is made and will show the original posting date of the announcement in the original course.
This works well if you are creating an announcement in one course and copying it to another section of the same course in the same term. But it may be a concern if you are copying announcements from a previous course. Even if the Always show start date box is unchecked in the original announcement, the email will still contain the original posting date of the announcement. Only in the course site will no date appear to the students for the copied announcement’s start date in the destination course.
If you do not want an email to be sent with the older date, leave Publish Announcement on Copy unselected, complete the copy, change the date in the destination course and then publish. Or use Method 1.