Administrators add, edit, and delete important messages from the institution on the Announcements page.

In the Original experience, these announcements appear in these areas:

  • The Announcements section of every course and organization
  • The My Announcements portal module
  • The Announcements tool in the portal tool panel

In the Ultra experience, announcements appear in these areas:

To learn how to enable the announcements tool for courses and organizations in the Original Course View, see Manage Tools.

More on announcements for students

More on announcements for instructors

Create or edit an announcement

  1. On the Administrator Panel in the Tools and Utilities section, select Announcements.
  2. Select Create Announcement -OR- select Edit in the announcement's menu. This table describes the options.
    Announcement Options
    Option Description
    Announcement Information
    Subject [r] Provide a subject for the message.
    Message Provide the body of the announcement.

    You can use the HTML editor to ensure your message formatting is preserved. Use <br /> for line breaks. "&#xA;" can render in browsers incorrectly and disregard the line breaks in your message.
    Web Announcement Options
    Duration Select Permanent to create a permanent announcement. This announcement automatically appears after the time and date it is created. Select Date Restricted to define the display dates.
    Select Date Restrictions This field displays only if you select Date Restricted in the Duration field. Select the Display After check box to make the announcement available on a certain date and time. Set the date and time by typing the values or using the pop-up calendar or clock options. Select the Display Until check box to stop displaying the announcement after a certain date and time. Set the date and time by typing the values or selecting the calendar or clock pickers.
    Show at Login Select Yes or No to make the announcement display on the login page.
    Show in Courses and Organizations Select Yes or No to make the announcement display on the Courses page. In the Original Course View, institution announcements will also show in the My Announcements module in Courses and Organizations pages.
    Blackboard Connect SMS Options
    These options are available only when Blackboard Learn has a valid and active integration with Blackboard Connect. Blackboard Connect isn't available with Blackboard Learn - Basic Edition.

    Learn more about setting up SMS Notifications in the Ultra experience
    Immediate SMS Copy To send the announcement as an SMS message via Blackboard Connect, select the Send above announcement to subscribers via SMS check box. The SMS messages aren't sent if the announcement is set to appear on the web at a later date. SMS messages are limited to 130 characters.
    SMS Announcement Text Provide the text of the SMS message.
    Blackboard Connect Text-to-Voice Options
    These options are available only when Blackboard Learn has a valid and active integration with Blackboard Connect. Blackboard Connect is not available with Blackboard Learn - Basic Edition.
    Immediate Read Aloud Copy To read the announcement aloud with Blackboard Connect Text-to-Voice, select the Read aloud via Text-to-Voice check box. To read aloud the original announcement text, select Read announcement text. To provide a custom message to be read aloud, select Compose custom message and provide the text of the Text-to-Voice message. The Text-to-Voice messages aren't sent if the announcement is set to appear on the web at a later date.
    Pronunciation Key The pronunciation key affects how the Text-to-Voice system pronounces the words in the announcement subject and message. Select either English Pronunciation Key or Spanish Pronunciation Key.
  3. Select Submit.

Where announcements appear

In the Original experience, announcements appear in the My Announcements module on the My Institution tab in this order:

  • Permanent institution announcements appear first.
  • Institution announcements that fall into the display range appear next.
  • Permanent course and organization announcements appear next.
  • Course and organization announcements that fall into the display range appear last.

Within each of the above categories, announcements appear in order of creation.

In the Ultra experience, announcements appear in the Today section of each user's activity stream. If you want to create announcements that reach only a select group of users, create a targeted notification. You can also display announcements on the Ultra login page so that your users don't need to log in to view announcements.