Messaging in Private Courses – 3900.46
Blackboard Learn SaaS
Ultra Experience
Ultra Course View
Impact: Instructors, Students
Some instructors need to communicate with students before a course is open to students. When a course is set to private, students cannot access the course. This means that students cannot access the course inbox to review messages. Because of this, we disabled the ability for instructors to send messages since there was no way for students to access those messages.
Image 1. Before – Instructors did not have a way to send messages when a course was private
Now instructors can send messages from within the course. Students can access the messages from the email address associated with their Blackboard account. This change does not change the access to the course inbox when the course is private. This change allows students to receive messages from the instructor via email when the course is private.
Image 2. Upload file option; we recommend instructors use the provided templates
Image 3. After – When composing a new message in a private course, instructors are informed how students receive those messages
When a course is private, instructors will see a banner in the course inbox or when drafting a message. The banner states that students cannot access the messages in the course when the course is private but will receive an email copy instead. Students will receive an email copy of any message sent. They will be able to access the message from within their course once the instructor opens the course.
For administrators: This feature is available for all Ultra courses. There are no configurations needed