The Announcements tool and the Announcements widget can help you to boost engagement by scheduling announcements for frequent and regular communication to all learners enrolled in a course. Learners can set notification preferences to be made aware of important updates.
Note: For more information about the Announcements tool refer to the Announcements overview topic. For more information about how to add the Announcements widget to your course homepage, refer to the Create a widget-based homepage topic.
Create a welcome message using the Announcements widget
Use the Announcements widget to create a welcome message for your learners.
To create an announcement using the Announcements widget
- From your Course Homepage, locate the Announcements widget.
- Click the drop-down menu next to Announcements.
- Click New Announcement.
Figure: The New Announcements option on the Announcements drop-down menu.
- Add a Headline and Content for your announcement.
Figure: The General dialog enables you to enter the Headline and Content of your announcement.
Note: A Headline and Content are required to create an announcement. Optional settings include Availability, Attachments, and Additional Release Conditions. For information on creating content in Brightspace Editor, see the article Create Course Content.
- Do one of the following:
- Click Publish to publish the announcement to your course.
- Click Save as Draft to save your progress and return later to publish your announcement.
- Click Cancel to remove your draft announcement.
Figure: Publish, Save as Draft, or Cancel buttons for your announcement.
Your announcement is posted to the Announcements widget and available to learners from the course homepage.
Edit an Announcement
To edit an announcement
- From the Announcements widget, click the context menu and select Go to Announcements Tool.
Figure: The Go to Announcements Tool option of the Announcements widget.
- On the Announcements page, click the Announcement that you want to edit.
Figure: The Major edit checkbox.
- Click Update.
Your announcement is updated and appears on the Announcements widget of the course homepage.
Delete and restore announcements
Delete announcements or restore a deleted announcement from the Announcements tool.
To delete an announcement
- From the Announcements widget, click the context menu and select Go to Announcements Tool.
- Select any announcements you want to delete and click Delete.
Figure: The Delete button on the announcements page.
- Click Yes to confirm the deletion.
The selected announcements are deleted.
To restore a deleted announcement
- From the Announcements page, click More Actions and select Restore.
Figure: The Restore button on the Restore Announcements page.
- Select the announcements you want to restore and click Restore.
The announcements are restored and available on the course home page.
Video: How to delete and restore Announcements
Copy an announcement
Use an existing announcement as a starting point by copying it and editing details.
To copy an existing announcement
- From the Announcements widget, click the context menu and select Go to Announcements Tool.
- Click the context menu next to the announcement you want to copy, and select Copy.
- In the Edit Announcements page, the following items are copied over from the original Announcement:
Figure: The Edit Announcements page for the copied announcement.
- Headline, with "Copy of " appended to the front
- Content
- Show Start Date setting
- Attachments
- Release conditions
- If you want to hide your headline's date and time, clear the Always show start date check box. By default, an Announcements item start date and time appears below the headline when displayed in the Announcements widget.
- In the Start Date and End Date fields, select the posting availability date. Announcements items publish immediately, unless you specify an alternate start date from Start Date.
Note: Post-dated Announcements items do not display in the Announcements widget even if users have permission to see future Announcements items. They can be found within the list of Announcements items on the Announcements page.
- You can remove an Announcements item on a specific date by selecting the Remove Announcements item based on end date check box. You and administrators can still see the Announcements item after its end date, but it does not appear in the Announcements widget.
- To include additional release conditions, click Attach Existing or Create and Attach.
- To continue editing the Announcements item, click Save as Draft. Learners cannot see draft Announcements items
- Click Publish.
The copied announcement is published.
