The announcements tool in Brightspace is a simple one way communication method which can be used by a lecturer/tutor to communicate with all students enrolled in a module. 

Using Announcements in your module

It is recommended that you use announcements as the primary method to communicate with your students to relay important updates and module specific information. For example announcements can be used to;

• inform students of any time sensitive specific module information (i.e. rescheduling of classes), updates (i.e. new content) or remind students of due dates and deadlines 
• check-in regularly with students i.e. in between classes or with those who are remote to outline the next steps or what is expected during this period of time (i.e. what they need to be doing/submitting/engaging with)
• present the message in context i.e. to include links to other areas of the module or attachments as appropriate
• personalise the learning journey of students if appropriate consider using announcements in conjunction with replace strings i.e. “Hi {FirstName} {LastName}” or release conditions 

Viewing Announcements  

All announcements for all modules which students are enrolled in are displayed once students login to Brightspace (as shown below). 

In addition, on the module homepage of each module the announcements are also visible. Students can see the date the announcement was posted, can view or dismiss each announcement.

Module announcements are one of the actions that triggers instant notifications to email but students must choose to set this themselves. Students can select to receive module announcements via email or the pulse app if they have it installed on their mobile device.