If you do not see the Announcements forum, please see Troubleshooting Announcement Forum problems below or check the article: Missing the Course Announcements Forum.

To post an announcement, the process you follow is exactly as if you were posting to any eClass discussion forum. You can either click on Add a new topic at the top of the right column 'Announcements' block; or click on the 'Announcements forum' link in the top section of your course and then on Add a new topic once you are inside your course announcements forum. You can then enter text as you would normally for any eClass forum.

Scheduling Announcement Posts

Through the basic forum tools, it is possible to set a schedule for delivery of course announcements:

Troubleshooting Announcement forum problems

In general, there are 2 things that can prevent your Announcements forum from sending messages to students:

1. Changing the forum's subscription settings
   It is possible to change the Subscription mode setting, which can be accessed by going on your forum settings, and navigating to the 'Subscription and tracking' category. This setting should always be left at (or set to) 'Forced subscription'.
   
   
   
   
2. The announcements forum is hidden/unavailable to students
   It is possible to post messages to the forum through the Announcements block in the right-hand column; however if the forum is hidden on the main course page, these announcements will not be visible, nor will any messages be sent. As well, if the course is currently closed (for example, if you're posting an announcement for students in an upcoming course), students will not receive a notification.
   
   

Changing the Announcements forum appearance

If you wish, you can re-title the 'Announcement forum' to other names. To do this, click the pencil icon beside the forum and enter a new title, 'Course News' for example. Be sure to press 'enter' to save and confirm your changes. The 'esc' key can be used to cancel any changes.

Changing News Display in Announcements Block

If you would like to change the number of news items that appear in the 'Announcements' block, click on the gear icon on your course main page, then on Edit settings. Then, navigate to the 'Appearance' category and change the value for ‘Number of announcements’ to the desired value. Be sure to click on Save changes at the bottom of the page to make the changes.

Hiding/Showing the Announcements

If you wish to remove the 'Announcements' entirely, you need to edit the number of ‘Number of announcements’ to zero and delete the 'Announcements' forum from the course home page by clicking on the Edit beside it (once editing is turned on), and click on Delete button. If you try to delete the 'Announcements' without changing the setting ‘Number of announcements’ to zero, it will reappear. You will also need to delete the 'Announcements' block from the right-hand column of blocks to completely remove the 'Announcements'.




Conversely, if you have previously deleted the 'Announcements' from your course, you can only return it by reversing these changes, both by entering a value in the number of ‘Number of announcements’ and by re-adding the 'Announcements' block (click Turn editing on, then at the bottom of the left-hand side of the window, click on Add a block then select Announcements).

Adding file attachments

You can add a file attachment to an Announcement by clicking on the Advanced link: