Sending an Announcement

This lesson will demonstrate how to send announcements to your students in Blackboard.  Announcements are one-way communications from the instructor to the students for important course events. You may also click here to view a video demonstration of creating an announcement.

Accessing Course Announcements

Image of the Course News page with an arrow pointing to the My Announcements box with instructions to locate the My Announcements box.  Within the box, another arrow is pointing to More Announcements, with instructions to click on More Announcements.

Log into your Blackboard course and go to the Course News page.  Locate the box labeled My Announcements and click the more announcements link in the bottom right corner of the box.

Creating an Announcement

Image of the announcements screen with the Create Announcement button outlined in a red circle

You will now see a screen labeled Announcements.  Click on the Create Announcement button at the top of the page.

Setting up the Announcement Information

Setting up the Announcement Information

You will now see a screen labeled Create Announcement.  The section labeled Announcement Information allows users to enter the announcement subject and message.

  1. Subject: Type in a subject for your announcement here.
  2. Message: In the textbox, type the message you wish to send to students.

Setting up the Announcement Display Options

Image of Web Announcement Options with the following annotations: 1.Duration: Select Not Date Restricted to show the announcement to students for the entire duration of the course.  Select Date Restricted to choose the time period in which the announcement will be visible to students.2.Select Date Restrictions: If you choose to restrict the availability dates, check the box and enter the time and date the announcement would become available to students, and when the announcement would no longer be available to students. 3. Email announcement: check the checkbox here to send an email announcement out to students.

Web Announcement Options allows users to determine how to display the announcement to students.

  1. Duration: Select Not Date Restricted to show the announcement to students for the entire duration of the course. The Not Date Restricted option is the default option.  Select Date Restricted to choose the time period in which the announcement will be visible to students.
  2. Select Date Restrictions: If you choose to restrict the availability dates, check the box and enter the time and date the announcement would become available to students, and when the announcement would no longer be available to students.
  3. Email announcement: Check the checkbox here to send an email announcement out to students.
Image of Section 3 Course link with the Browse button outlined with a red circle, and the submit button at the bottom right corner.

The section labeled Course Link allows instructors to create a link to a course item when creating the announcement.  To link to a course item, click Browse and select the item to link to. When you are finished with setting up the announcement, click the Submit button at the bottom of the page to create the announcement.

An announcement that is linked to unavailable content will not be displayed to students. If students cannot see the announcement, please check to make sure the linked item is visible to students.

Announcements in Activity Stream

Image of activity stream

When an announcement is created, it will appear in instructors and students Activity Stream.