Course Announcements

Announcements are internal notifications within Blackboard courses that display as a pop-up for all enrolled users the next time they log in; copies can also be sent to all users via email. 

Use announcements to share important, time-sensitive information.

Add an Announcement

On the top navigation menu, select the announcements link to get started. Once there are announcements posted in the course, a numerical indicator will appear next to the announcement tab in the course showing the number of unread announcements available.

The New Announcement page appears. Click on the to add a new announcement. If you already have added announcements, you will see a summary of posted, scheduled and in draft announcements.

Send an Announcement to multiple courses using the Qwickly Tools

 Use Qwickly Tools to send an announcement to multiple courses

From the institution page menu, select Tools.

Find and select the Qwickly Course Tools icon.

Select Announcement from the Course Tools menu:

You will see your courses listed.  If you have a number of courses, you can use the search feature to find a specific course. Additionally, you can choose to select all courses, or select multiple individual courses by checking the corresponding box.

Add a title for your announcement.  Compose your announcement in the text editor.  Select the Choose File button to upload attachments and, if desired, add display after and display until dates.  These dates are optional and if you do not select any, the announcement will post immediately to the courses your have selected. Check the send an email box if you would like students to receive the announcement via email, in addition to viewing it in the blackboard course.

When you are satisfied with your announcement and appropriate settings, be sure to select the submit button to ensure the announcement goes out.

Search for an announcement

Select the magnifying glass icon and enter your search criteria in the search field.

Send an email copy of the announcement

Schedule an announcement

Select the Schedule announcement check box.

Select the Show on check box and use the calendar and clock icons to select the date and time you would like to announcement to post and become available to students.  If desired, select a Hide on date and time.

Select  Post to post the announcement immediately.

Select Save Draft to save your announcement as a draft. You will need to remember to post the announcement manually.

Select Cancel if you wish to delete the announcement.

On the Course Announcements page, you can see the status of your post.  If you scheduled the announcement to be released in the future, the status will read Scheduled.  If you did not schedule a future release date, but saved it as a draft, you will see an option to "Post Now".  Select Post Now to post your announcement immediately.

Edit/Copy/Delete an announcement

Open the announcements page using the announcement tab in the top navigation menu.  Find the announcement you want to edit/copy/delete and select the three dot menu to open the menu.

Student View of Announcements

When students enter the course, a pop-up box with any new announcements since the last time they logged in will appear on the screen.  On the announcement pop-up, students will have the ability to mark the announcement as read/unread. Students will be able to perform the same task from the announcement tab within the blackboard course. Students will have to close the pop-up box before they can interact with any course content.

If "send an email copy" to recipients is selected, a copy of the announcement will be sent to the student's official syr.edu email.  Attachments will be sent as a link that the student can open to view.

You can watch the following video for further details on Course Announcements.