In the Blackboard Instructor app, you create and view announcements within individual courses. Announcements are supported for both Ultra and Original courses.

View announcements

Access a course and tap Announcements on the course overview to see Scheduled, Current, and Past announcements for the course you're viewing. In Ultra courses, you also see Draft announcements. If a category doesn't contain any announcements, it doesn't appear. Tap each announcement to see its content.

In the app, you can create announcements with rich text and and media only for Ultra courses. For Original courses, you can create plain text announcements. In the web view of your course, you can create announcements with rich text and and media for both course views. 

Where do students see announcements?

You can create announcements in the web browser view of your course or in the Blackboard Instructor mobile app. Students see current announcements in the web browser view of Blackboard Learn and in the Blackboard app for students:

  • Web browser view of Blackboard Learn
    • Inside individual courses in the Announcements area
    • Inside individual courses in pop-up window for Ultra courses
    • My Institution tab for the Original experience
    • Activity Stream for the Ultra experience
  • Blackboard app
    • Inside individual courses
    • Activity Stream

Original courses

You can create and schedule announcements as well as delete them. For existing announcements, you can edit the subject and settings but not the message content.

In addition to course announcements, institution alerts also appear in Announcements if the system administrator selected the option to post in courses.

Create new announcement

  1. Select Announcements on the course overview.
  2. Tap Create.
  3. Type a subject.
  4. Tap Add announcement content and type a plain text message. When you're done, tap the back arrow.
  5. Optionally, choose release options. Select a Show on or Hide on date. If you don't pick a date, the announcement is visible to students immediately. You can also select the option to send an email copy to students. You can’t send an email copy for an announcement scheduled to display in the future.

    More on email copies of announcements in Blackboard Learn

  6. Select Preview to view the announcement. Cancel to delete the announcement.
  7. Select Post to publish the announcement to your course members immediately or on the date you selected.
    • Original course announcements don't have a save draft option. If you aren't ready to post, tap the back arrow and return to the New Announcement screen. From this screen, you can edit more or tap Cancel to delete the announcement.

Edit announcement

In Original courses, you can edit the announcement subject, Show on, Hide on, and Send email copy options. You can't edit the announcement content.

  1. On the Announcements screen, tap an individual announcement.
  2. Tap the three dots at the top of the screen and select Edit.
  3. Make changes to the subject or release options.
  4. Select Preview to view the announcement's changes. Cancel to delete the announcement's changes.
  5. Tap Save to post the edited announcement. If you don't want to save, use the back arrow to return to the Edit Announcement screen.

Delete announcement

When you delete an announcement in the app, it's also deleted in the web browser view of the course.

  1. On the Announcements screen, tap an individual announcement.
  2. Tap the three dots at the top of the screen and select Delete.
  3. Select Delete in the confirmation pop-up window.

Ultra courses

You can create, edit, and delete announcements. You can schedule announcements to show at a later date. 

Create new announcement

  1. Select Announcements on the course overview.
  2. Tap Create.
  3. Type a subject.
  4. Tap Add announcement content and use the editor to type a message, format text, and add media. When you're done, tap the back arrow.
  5. Optionally, select a Show on or Hide on date. If you don't pick a date, the announcement is visible to students immediately.
  6. Select Preview to view your announcement. Cancel to delete the announcement.
  7. Select Post to publish the announcement to your course members immediately or on the date you selected. Select Save Draft to save the announcement but not post it. You can return to the draft later to post or schedule it.

Edit announcement

    In Ultra courses, you can edit the announcement subject, text, and Show on and Hide on options.

    1. On the Announcements screen, tap an individual announcement.
    2. Tap the three dots at the top of the screen and select Edit.
    3. Make changes to the subject, content, or release options.
    4. Select Preview to view the announcement's changes. Cancel to delete the announcement's changes.
    5. Tap Save to post the edited announcement.

    Delete announcement

    When you delete an announcement in the app, it's also deleted in the web browser view of the course.

    1. On the Announcements screen, tap an individual announcement.
    2. Tap the three dots at the top of the screen and select Delete.
    3. Select Delete in the confirmation pop-up window.

    Statements about future development

    *Statements regarding our product development initiatives, including new products and future product upgrades, updates or enhancements represent our current intentions, but may be modified, delayed or abandoned without prior notice and there is no assurance that such offering, upgrades, updates or functionality will become available unless and until they have been made generally available to our customers.