Docent - Teacher

How do I create an Announcement?

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An instructional video is included for this subject. This instructional video will provide a step-by-step explanation about creating Announcements. A written manual can be found below the video.

Announcements homepage
Create a new Announcement
Copy an Announcement                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Copying an Announcement to other courses

Announcements allow you to quickly and easily bring students up to speed with important information regarding your course. You can use Announcements to welcome students to the course at the beginning of the semester, notify them of any important material that has been added to the course, warn them about a deadline, or tell them that the coming lecture will be given in a different room. You can: 

  • Personalise announcements with an audio or video message.
  • Determine from when, how long and for whom the Announcement will be visible.
  • Edit or remove Announcements.

You can find Announcements on the Course Home of your course.

Announcements are not automatically sent to students by email.

Students can choose whether they want to receive notifications by mail. Teachers have no influence on this. It is a personal setting within the Brightspace account of the student.
We advise you to inform your students about this setting if you frequently use Announcements to communicate with your students. 

Announcements homepage

The Announcements homepage gives you an overview of all the Announcements you have created. You can go to Announcements via Course Home or via Administration.

Via Course Home:

  • Click the fold-out arrow next to Announcements.
  • Click Go to Announcements Tool.

Via Administration:

  • Go to Administration in the navbar of your course.
  • Click Course Admin.
  • Click Announcements below Communication.
  • Click New Announcement to create a new Announcement.
  • Click More Actions to change the order in which the Announcements are placed (Reorder), to go to Notifications, or to restore dismissed Announcements (Restore).
  • Use the search function to find a specific Announcement. Click Show Search Options to select in which Announcements you want to search or if you want to search within specific dates.
  • The table shows the name, message, start date (date from which the Announcement will be visible), the potential end date, and status (Published or Draft) of every Announcement.

Create a new Announcement

  • Go to the Course Home of the course in which you want to add a new Announcement.

 

  • Click the fold-out arrow next to Announcements.
  • Click New Announcement.
  1. Give your Announcement a title below Headline.
  2. Select Display Author Information to add your name to the title of the post. This way students will be able to see who posted the message.
  3. Write your message.
  4. Below Availability you can determine when your new Announcement will be visible:
    • The start date is always visible for students unless you uncheck the box in front of Always show start date. If you uncheck that box you can only see the start date when you are editing the Announcement.
    • Add a start date below Start Date (the date from which the Announcement will be visible). 
    • If you want to have the Announcement disappear after a certain amount of time, you can check the box in front of Remove announcement based on end date. Fill in the end date from which the Announcement should not be visible anymore.
  1. It is possible to add a file to an Attachment by clicking on Add a File below Attachments. You can also record an audio or video file with the buttons Record Audio and Record Video respectively. To do this, your device should possess the capabilities to record audio and/or video.
  2. You can add conditions that are required for students in order for them to view the Announcement below Additional Release Conditions.
    • Click Attach Existing to add existing release conditions.
    • Click Create and Attach to create new release conditions.
    • Select whether one or all release conditions are required for students before they can see the Announcement in the dropdown menu.
  3. Click Publish to publish your Announcement or click Save as Draft if you want to make some adjustments at a later moment. You will be automatically redirected to the Announcements homepage.

Copy an Announcement

It is also possible to copy an Announcement. With this copy you will not only copy the Announcement's text, but also the settings like the Release Conditions. 

Would you like to copy an announcement to one or more other courses? Then go to Copy an Announcement to (an) other course(s).

  1. Click the arrow next to the Announcement you want to copy.
  2. Click Copy.
  1. Change the title of the Announcement.
  2. When necessary, change the content of the Announcement.

All other features on the edit page are similar to the features when creating an Announcement.

3.  Click Publish to publish the copied Announcement.

Copying an Announcement to other courses

  1. Click the arrow next to the Announcement you want to copy.
  2. Click Copy to Other Courses.
  1. Tick the courses you want to copy the announcement to. You can tick up to ten courses.
  2. Tick Publish announcement on Copy if you want the announcement to be published immediately in the other course(s). If you don't tick this box, the announcement will appear in the announcement overview, but it won't be visible to students yet. 
  3. Click Next.
  4. Then click Copy and Done and the announcement will be copied to the courses you selected
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