The announcement function is a key communication tool for making staff and students aware of events, deadlines and other important information. Announcements can be sent on courses and communities (organisations). This guide will cover the following steps:
- visibility of announcements (course / community welcome message and announcements page, activity stream, and email copy)
- selecting your user preferences for receiving an email copy of announcements
Welcome message and announcements page visibility
New announcements appear each time a student enters a course / community. Students need to close the new announcements window before they can view other content.
On the course content page, in the details & actions panel, users can select view archive to read past, live announcements. They may also select the search announcements icon and type keywords to locate a specific announcement.
- The newest announcements appear at the top of the announcements page by default.
- However, scheduled announcements will appear in the listing based upon when they were created, not on the future scheduled time. They may therefore appear further down the list when they finally go live.
Activity stream visibility
Active announcements also appear in the today and recent sections of the activity stream. Students can click on the announcement to be redirected to the announcement in full. Scheduled announcements also appear for students in the activity stream at the scheduled time. Students may need to refresh their browser to see new content appear in the activity stream.
Email copy visibility
There are several factors that impact if and when users receive email copies of announcements:
- the role of the user (staff or student)
- the personal preference setting of the user for emails notifications (email me straight away or daily summary email)
- the set up of the announcement (email straight away, schedule, or neither schedule or email selected)
- if the announcement was set up on a course or community
- summary email notifications content may vary in what is included in each summary and some content will still come through as a direct email
Staff and students should select email straight away in their own preferences to get the maximum amount of content emailed directly. For example, if a student has selected email me straight away in their personal settings, they will get a direct email for all announcements on a course, regardless of how the staff member has set up the announcement.
Staff and students can also regularly check the announcements page directly – to ensure they access content as quickly as possible and do not miss any essential information (as some content may still not be sent in a daily digest or directly, regardless of user preferences).
When staff set up announcements, we recommend staff use email straight away when they wish staff and students to get an email copy for course and community announcements.
Please also see the below further explanation of scenarios for when staff and students receive email copies of announcements.
Student direct email announcements
| Scenario | Students have selected email me straight away in their profile settings | Students have selected email me once a day in their profile settings |
| Send an email copy of this announcement selected when announcement created | Direct email generated on a course and a community. | Direct email generated on a course and a community. |
| Send a scheduled announcement selected when announcement created | Direct email generated on a course. | NA |
| Neither send an email copy or scheduled announcement selected when announcement created | Direct email generated on a course. | NA |
*For those students who have selected to receive summary email notifications, such content may vary in what is included in each summary. As above, we recommend students should select email straight away in their own preferences to get the maximum amount of content emailed directly.
Staff direct email announcements
| Scenario | Staff have selected email me straight away in their profile settings | Staff have selected email me once a day in their profile settings |
| Send an email copy of this announcement selected when announcement created | Direct email generated on a course and a community. | Direct email generated on a course and a community. |
| Send a scheduled announcement selected when announcement created | NA | NA |
| Neither send an email copy or scheduled announcement selected when announcement created | NA | NA |
*For staff who have selected to receive summary email notifications, such content may vary in what is included in each summary. As above, we recommend staff should select email straight away in their own preferences to get the maximum amount of content emailed directly.
HYMS staff accounts currently do not get daily notifications. This is being investigated.
Example email copy of an announcement
A direct email announcement will look similar to the below.
When viewing an announcement via an email, users will need to also be logged into HYMS Blackboard to access any links in the email view.
Email copy of course and community announcements
Users can choose between a preference for email straight away and an email summary once a day.
Click on the following link to access HYMS Blackboard Learn Ultra: https://blackboard.hyms.ac.uk. Please also see further log in guidance on the following help page; log in to HYMS Blackboard Learn Ultra.- Once logged in, click on your name in the left-hand navigation menu.
- Under system settings > global notification settings click on email notifications.
From here, you can select either email me straight away or email me once a day.
As explained above, staff and students should select email straight away in their own preferences to get the maximum amount of content emailed directly. For example, if a student has selected email me straight away in their personal settings, they will get a direct email for all announcements on a course, regardless of how the staff member has set up the announcement.
Staff and students can also regularly check the announcements page directly – to ensure they access content as quickly as possible and do not miss any essential information (as some content may still not be sent in a daily digest or directly, regardless of user preferences). Users who select to receive a daily digest will also still receive some content in a direct email (based upon the set up of the announcement).
We do not recommend setting up a separate folder for email notifications as users may miss essential course / community information and activity. However, some users (such as staff) may wish to organise content in a separate folder from their main inbox.
Users can create a new folder in their inbox (under folders / create new folder), then set up a rule in their inbox (often under settings / inbox rules / add new rule) with a rule for incoming emails from the notifications sender ‘donotreply@blackboard.com’ to be sent to this new folder and not the inbox. Please check online for specific guidance on how to do this for your email account. We recommend still reviewing content in such a folder regularly to stay up to date with all course / community activity.