I am writing this blog post as a follow up to my recent announcements blog post. ICYMI, you can find the blog post here: Brightspace Tip #561: Announcements.
Announcements can help boost learner engagement by providing regular and timely communications to all learners enrolled in a course. This blog post focuses on pinning, reordering, and copying announcements.
Pin Announcements
Pinning an announcement to the top of the Announcements widget keeps critical information immediately visible to students, preventing important updates from getting buried as new, less urgent posts appear. This feature ensures key messages remain prominently displayed on your course homepage. Multiple announcements can be pinned, but the most recently pinned message will appear at the top of your list.
NOTE: While pinned announcements will appear at the top of the Announcements widgets, learners can dismiss announcements, including pinned announcements.
Unpin Announcements
There is no expiration date to remove a pinned announcement. You have to manually remove the pin. However, when you set an end date for a pinned announcement, the pinned announcement will not appear in the learners announcement widget past its availability end date.
Reorder Announcements
Did you create or update an announcement and need to move it to the top? Did you push back an assignment and want to change the order of your announcements? If so, you can reorder your announcements!
Copy Announcements
With just a few clicks you can quickly make a copy of a course announcement in the same course as well as copy the announcement to other Brightspace courses. This feature is built right into the shortcut menu. You don't have to copy and paste to duplicate the announcement.
Note: You must be enrolled in the course you copy from (source) and the courses you copy to (destination).
You can select the following options when copying announcements:
- Copy announcements to other courses in draft state, so you can publish the announcement content from within the destination course later.
- Publish copied announcements at the same time you copy it, bypassing the draft stage.
Attributes That Are Copied:
- Headline
- Display Author Information
- Content: Includes associated files, such as inserted images.
- Start and End Date: Start and end dates are not automatically offset. Dates remain the same as in the original course.
- Attachments
- Pin State
Attributes That Are Not Copied:
- Assignments
- Quick links to activities
- LTIs
- Release Conditions
- Send Email Copy settings
Follow these steps to do it.
Pin an Announcement:
- From the Announcements widget or the Announcements tool, select the dropdown arrow beside the announcement’s title, then select Pin to top.
- A pin icon will appear beside the posted date.
Unpin an Announcement:
- From the Announcements widget or the Announcements tool, select the dropdown arrow beside the announcement’s title, then select Unpin.
- The pin icon will be removed.
Reorder Announcements:
- From the Announcements tool, click on More Actions, then select Reorder.
- Change the sort order number for the relevant announcements.
- Click Save.
Copy Announcements:
- From the Announcements widget or the Announcements tool, select the dropdown arrow beside the announcement’s title, then select Copy or Copy to Other Courses and follow the prompts.
Want more information?
Create an announcement using the Announcements widget
Brightspace Tip #561: Announcements
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