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What it does

The Announcements tool is used to inform site participants about current items of interest. Announcements can have multiple attachments, such as documents or URLs.

To see the Announcements from all the sites to which you belong, in the menubar of My Workspace, click Announcements.

Key concepts

Sorting: You can sort announcements by subject, sender, access, or date.

Posting: Announcements are posted to a course or project site. Site owners and instructors can choose to have an announcement automatically sent to particular sections.

Once you've turned automatic sectioning on or created sections using the Section Info tool (in course sites) or "Manage Groups" button (in project sites), you can use the Announcements tool to send an email to specific sections by doing the following:

1. When adding a new announcement, select Display to selected groups under the main body of the announcement. If you haven't created any sections, this option will not appear.
2. Select the section(s) for which you would like to post an announcement.
3. If you would also like to have the announcement emailed to the specific section(s) you have selected, choose the appropriate option from the Email Notification drop down box.
4. Click Add Announcement

You can also email specific sections using the Mailtool. Click the Mailtool and then click Select Sections at the top of the page. If you do not have the Mailtool in your lefthand toolbar you can add it by going to Site info > Edit Tools.

Things to consider

• Announcements are a useful way to post a notice about an important change in deadlines, meeting times, or meeting locations.
• You can draft and save an announcement before you send it out to site participants. Your drafts will be shown with a "Draft" marker in your list of announcements.
• When creating an announcement, you can select Show to make it visible, Hide to hide it, or you can select Specify Dates to set a beginning date and ending date for the announcement's visibility.