Creating Announcements & Settings

  1. Begin by accessing Announcements from within Information and clicking the Add Announcement Icon Add Announcement icon.
  2. The General Tab will open automatically after you’ve clicked to add an announcement. This is where you will define the Subject which is a mandatory field.
  3. Additional settings are available within the General tab.
    • Details is where you will place the Announcement content.  Here you can also name the Contributor (the administrator that is creating the content), and apply a Category. Adding Categories to your content aids in your department's curriculum mapping.
    • Tags allows you to add tags to your content so that you may easily find content associated with a particular tag.  Tags can also aid in your department's curriculum mapping.
    • Location Information could provide students with the location of an event mentioned in the announcement.
    • Calendar Settings allows you to publish the date/time that the announcement will be displayed on the Content Calendar and the What’s New list. Duration sets how long the event will be visible on the Calendar.

      This does not affect the actual availability of the announcement. Availability settings must be set from the Availability Tab.

  4. The announcement will automatically be published in Released mode but can be changed to Draft mode under the Availability Tab which contains the publish and release status of the announcement.
  5. The Availability Tab also allows you to set a Released Date, Expiration Date, and whether or not the announcement should be displayed in Content.
    • Selecting a Released date sets the date/time that the announcement becomes available to students. If the announcement is released and the release date is set to a future date/time then the announcement will not be available until that date/time.
    • The Expiration date sets a date/time in which the announcement becomes unavailable. Once an announcement expires it will no longer be visible to students within Information.
    • If you want to show the announcement in Content you must first submit the announcement creation then return and edit the announcement. The Show in Course/Site Content checkbox will now be located on the Availability Tab. Click the checkbox to create a content item in Content for the announcement.

      This is not available during the creation of the announcement and will only become available if you edit an existing announcement. You can also create the announcement from within Content.

  6. All students have access to the announcement unless restrictions are made. The Access Control tab can be used to set restrictions based on your user list and preset roles.  To enable restrictions, select any of the three Add Restrictions buttons within this tab.
  7. The Dependent Release Tab allows you to release an announcement based upon the completion of set criteria. For example, you can set the announcement to be released once a user has scored at least an 80% on an exam or submitted an assignment.
  8. The Advanced Settings tab allows you to set the Priority and Email options for the announcement.
    • Priority – Announcements are classified by administrators as High, Normal or Low Priority. This does not affect the announcement placement on the list or release dates that have been set but serves as a visual cue for students regarding the announcement status.
      1. High Priority - displayed in Content with red text.
      2. Normal Priority (Default) - displayed in Content with green text.
      3. Low Priority - displayed in Content with orange text.
    • Email to – Allows you to choose who to email the announcement to. You can choose based on the Roles defined within the Users list in the Control Panel. Announcements DO NOT automatically email the users of the courses and therefore you must choose to send the email.
  9. Click the Add Announcement button once you have selected all settings for the announcement.
  10. An existing announcement can be edited by clicking the announcement and then clicking the Edit icon on the top right of the main content area.
  11. You may also review the Access Reports (see who viewed the announcement and when) or the Activity Log (view when it was created or when edits were made).  These options can also be found on the top right of the main content area.