Teachers/Course Directors - EDSPORA

Instructors can use the Announcements Forum in Edspora to send important notifications to students. All messages posted in the Announcements Forum are automatically sent to each student’s email, and students cannot unsubscribe from these notifications.

Read more about Announcement/Forum behavior and Edspora Quickmail

Students are unable to reply within the Announcements Forum, but can still read posted messages. Attachments to forum posts are not included in email notifications but can be accessed from the Edspora course directly.

Posting an announcement

On your course page, click the Announcements link. The Announcements page will open, showing the description you provided when you set up the activity, and if any posts have been made, they will be listed here. If no topics or posts have been added, you’ll see a message “(No news has been posted yet.)”On the next page, click the Add a new topic button
Enter a Subject and a Message (both are required).
If subscription is set to Optional in the forum’s settings, you can use the Subscription drop-down menu to choose whether or not to receive email copies of posts made to this forum. (This will affect you, not your students.)
You may choose to add an attachment.
Select the Mail now checkbox if you do not want the standard 30-minute delay before subscribers receive an email.
Select the Pinned checkbox if you want to highlight your Post to be at the top of your Announcements list.
Click Post to forum to post your message. A “success” message appears. Click Continue to return to the Announcements forumpage.

Edit announcements settings

On your course page, click Turn editing on (at top right). Editing icons and links will appear next to editable items.
Locate the Announcements forum, click Edit (at right), then select Edit Settings. The Updating Forum page will open.
To rename the activity from Announcements, in the Forum name box, enter a new name.
To add a description, enter text in the Description box, and to have the description display on the course page under the Announcements link, select the checkbox for Display description on course page.
To change whether class members receive emails of posts, click to open Subscription and tracking, and from the Subscription mode drop-down, select a new option:
- Optional subscription – Participants can choose whether to be subscribed.
- Forced subscription (Default) – Everyone is subscribed and cannot unsubscribe.
- Auto subscription – Everyone is subscribed initially but can choose to unsubscribe at any time.
- Subscription disabled – Subscriptions are not allowed..
Read tracking allows your course members to see a highlighted message next to the forum if they have unread posts. The default setting is Optional.
The remaining settings are common to all forums but not useful for Announcements and can be ignored.
To save your changes, scroll to the bottom of the screen and click Save and return to course.

Delete Announcements

If you want to delete Announcements from your course, you must first remove the Latest news block, otherwise Announcements link will automatically regenerate after you delete it.

On your course page, click Turn editing on. The page will refresh showing editing icons and links.
On the Latest news block, click the Edit icon and select X Delete Latest news block. When asked if you are sure you want to delete this block, click Yes. The page will refresh and the block will no longer be in your course.
To the right of Announcements, click Edit , then select X Delete. A Confirm pop-up will open asking if you are sure you want to delete the forum; click Yes. The page will refresh and the forum will no longer be in your course.

Replace a deleted announcements forum

If you ever want the Announcements forum back in your course, you’ll find out that Announcements is the only Edspora activity that does not appear in the Add an activity or resource menu! To recover your Announcements:

You must first add the Latest news block back to your course
In the Latest news block click Add a new topic… . The Announcements forum will automatically reappear in the top section of your course whether you click Post forum or click Cancel.

The Activities block lists the various content by the types currently available to students in your course, such as Forums, Assignments, Quizzes, Resources, etc.

Links are automatically added to the block

The list of types of Activities displayed in the Activities block will grow as you add activities and resources to your course. The first time you enter a new course, the only item in the Activities block is Forums because your course is created with only one forum in it, Announcements (previously called News forum).

When you add a new type of activity or a resource to your course, an icon and link will appear in the Activities block. Click a link for a list of all the instances of that type of activity that appear throughout the course. For example, clicking on Assignments will display a list of all Edspora assignments in your course, grouped by the course section they are in.

Add the activities block to your Edspora course

The Activities block is added by default to new courses, but if it is not in your course you can add it:

On your course page, click Turn editing on.
At the bottom of the right sidebar, in the block titled Add a block, click Add…
From the list of blocks that appears in the drop-down menu, select Activities. The Activities block will appear at the bottom of the right sidebar.

Move the Activities Block to the Top of the Sidebar

Since this block provides an easy and useful way for students to find items and activities in your course, we recommend placing it near the top of the sidebar containing your blocks.

On your course page, click Turn editing on.
To rearrange a block, place your cursor over the Move icon.
Drag and drop the block into a new position in the sidebar.

Category: Teachers/Course Directors

How To: Use Course Announcements in Edspora