The announcement can also optionally be sent as an email message to site members. Site owners should ... adding, reading
Announcements Purpose: Announcements are made by a site owner to inform site participants of items of interest or importance. The tool is used for one-way communication from site owners to site participants, and can also be used to send files or URLs as attachments. WebLearn sites that use the A n no un c e m e nts tool show a summary R ec en t A n no u nc e me n ts window on the site’s O v er v i e w page; the A n n o unc e me n ts tool in M y W ork s p ac e collates all announcements from all the sites in which you are a member. Default permissions: Participants with ac c es s rights are able to read an announcement. Site owners, or those with the m ai n tai n or c o n tri b ut e role, are able to read, create, edit and remove announcements made within the site. Typical use & good practice tips: A tutor may wish to inform students of an important change of meeting time, or draw attention to a major change within the site. If a number of items have been added to a site’s R es o u rc es , it is preferable to inform site members by making one announcement instead of emailing members as each individual resource is added. The announcement can also optionally be sent as an email message to site members. Site owners should consider informing participants of how the A n n o u nc e m e nts tool will be used within the site; beware of overloading participants with low-priority announcements. If the A nn o u nc e m e nts tool is not currently visible in your site, go to Si t e I n f o > Edi t T o ol s and add it to your site. This guide will show you how to get started with the A n n o unc e m en ts tool, covering: , adding, reading, creating, modifying and deleting announcements. Other useful step-by-step guides to read in conjunction with this one: Adding tools to a WebLearn site Attaching files in WebLearn Assignments HTML (WYSIWYG) editor All step-by-step guides are available from w e bl e ar n. ox .ac . uk /i n f o
Read an Announcement
To read an existing announcement, simply click its title.
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Add an Announcement By default, only site members with the m ai n t ai n or c o ntri b u te role are able to create announcements within the site. 1. From within your WebLearn site, choose the A n no u nc e me n ts tool from the list of tools on the left. Click A dd to create a new announcement. 2. A form page will open up. Enter the title and body of your announcement. Both are required fields:
Click here for help with the WYSIWYG editor.
O n l y me mb e r s o f t h i s s i t e is the default setting
If you make this announcement publicly viewable, you need to make it available it via the RSS link provided under Options for this tool (see later in this guide) This option is only visible if groups have previously been defined via the S i t e I n f o tool
S h o w is the default setting and will show the announcement immediately.
You can choose to prepare all your announcements in advance, with post-dated availability dates on which they will automatically appear to site members.
You can opt to email site participants and notify them of the new announcement. See next page for more information.
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3. Scroll down the page and select from the following choices:
A c c es s : the default is O nl y m e m be rs of t hi s s i te but you can select to open the announcement to the public: T hi s a n n ou nc e men t i s p u bl i cl y v i ew a bl e . Most
announcements are likely to be made for the site only, hence this is the default setting.
A v ail a bi li ty (i.e. timed release): choose dates if you wish to delay the
announcement or not have it visible after a certain date; otherwise leave as S h o w 4. If you wish to add an attachment, click A d d A tt ac h m e nt s . You can add a file stored on your computer, attach a link to a web page or attach an existing item from the R es o ur c es tool in any of your sites. It may be useful to keep a copy of any attachments in R es o ur c es for archival purposes. For more on how to attach a file, see the guide entitled Attaching files in WebLearn. 5. Optional. You can send an email to notify site participants about the new announcement. In the E m ai l N o ti fi c ati o n field, select from the options shown below:
N o n e - N o n o ti fi c ati o n (this is the default setting). Choose this if you do not want
the notification emailed to site participants
L o w - O nl y pa r ti c i pa n ts w h o h av e op t ed i n . This will send the notification only
Hi gh - Al l p ar ti c i pa nts . Choose this if you want all participants to receive email
to participants who have chosen to receive low-priority mail notifications notification.
Note that an email notification of an announcement with an attachment does not contain the attachment; instead there will be a link to the attachment.
6. To post the announcement, click P os t A nn o u nc em e n t .
To see how your announcement will look before posting it, click Pr ev i e w .
To exit area without posting the announcement, click C a nc el .
The R e c e n t A n n o u n c e m e n t s window on the site’s H o m e page will display the announcement. The format of this display can be changed by using the O p t i o n s link when you return to the list of messages.
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Edit an Announcement By default, only site members with the m ai n t ai n or c o ntri b u te role are able to modify announcements within the site. 1. On the A n n o u nc e m e nts page, click on E di t and make the appropriate changes to the announcement that you wish to modify:
2. To finish revising the announcement, click S av e C h a ng es .
To see how your announcement will look, click P re v i ew .
To exit area without making an announcement, click C a nc el .
3. Note that it may be more useful to make a new announcement than to edit one that has already been posted.
Delete an Announcement By default, only site members with the m ai n t ai n or c o ntri b u te role are able to delete announcements within the site. This process will not remove email notifications that may have been sent at the time of making the announcement. 1. Tick the box(es) to the right of the announcement(s) you wish to delete under the header R e mov e ?
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2. Click U p d at e and an alert will ask if you are sure you want to delete the announcement(s). 3. Click R e m ov e to delete the message or C an c el to take no action.
Manage Announcements You can manage and organise the way announcements appear on the main A n n o u nc em e nts page:
Click any of the headings to sort the list according to that field
This A n n o u n c e me n t is greyed out because it has expired
When creating an A s s i g n me n t , you can elect to automatically send an announcement about the opening date (the A n n o u n c e me n t s tool must be present in the site)
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Besides adding, editing or removing announcements on this page, you can use the links across the top to do the following (each of which is explained further below):
Merge announcements from other sites into this one
Reorder the announcements by dragging and dropping list items
Set options to control the way announcements are displayed
Set permissions for the access, contribute and maintain roles
Merge announcements from other sites You can merge announcement from other sites in which you are a maintainer, to be displayed in this site’s An n o unc e me n ts tool:
Select the sites whose announcements you wish to merge into this tool, then scroll down and click
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Reorder announcements Use the R e or de r button to reorder the list of announcements by dragging and dropping:
The R e ord er An n o unc em e n t s page appears:
Set Options for Announcements Use the O pti o ns button to control various defaults for this tool, and to access the RSS URL for the tool:
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The O p ti o ns page appears:
Control the way the list of A n n o u n c e me n t s is displayed
Access the A n n o u n c e me n t s in your favourite RSS reader (public announcements only)
The R S S F ee d works only for public announcements. When creating or editing an announcement, select the option to make it publicly viewable, and then distribute it via the above RSS link:
Note that there is a separate O p ti o ns button in the summary display on the O v erv i e w page of the site, which controls how the summary is displayed there:
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Set Permissions for Announcements Use the P e rmi s s i o ns button to control permissions for the various roles in this tool:
The P er mi s s i ons matrix appears:
By default, site members with the access (or suspended) roles can only read announcements, and those with the other two roles have full permissions. You may grant or remove permissions here as required.
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