An Instructor's Guide to Sakai: Communication Tools

Announcements are used to inform site participants of current items of interest. Announcements can have multiple attachments, including documents and URLs.

It is possible to draft and save an announcement before sending it out to site participants or posting it on the site. Announcements appear in a list when you are in the Announcements Tool. They also appear on the home page of each Sakai course or project site.

Site owners and instructors can choose to have an announcement automatically emailed to all of the site participants by using the "required notification" Setting.

Available buttons are: [Add] [Merge] [Options] [Permissions]

Creating an Announcement

Step 1: In the menu bar, click [Announcements].
Step 2: Click [Add] to create an announcement.
Step 3: In the box that appears, type the title and body of your announcement.
Note: Fields marked with an asterisk are required.
Step 4: Select a display option by clicking a radio button. Your choices are:

•Display to public
•Display to site
•Display to selected groups (only available if group or sections have been created).

Click the check box next to the people or group to which you want to send the announcement.

Specifying Availability
The availability option allows you to display and remove announcements at a specified time and date.

Step 1: Click the Specify Dates radio button.
Step 2: Check the checkbox next to "Beginning".
Step 3: Specify the date and time you want your announcement to be shown
Step 4: Check the checkbox next to "Ending"
Step 5: Specify the date and time you want your announcement to be taken down
• Select [Show] button if you would like your announcement to be shown to the class.
• Click [Hide] If you would like to hide your announcement from student view.
•  You may also choose to display your announcement for a specified period of time to do so

To add an attachment

• Click [Add Attachments] .
You can attach an existing item from the resources tool in any of your sites OR add an item from your computer. The next two sections describe these operations.

Note: Folders from your resources tool(s) will be visible. You can navigate to a document within any of these folders and attach it to your announcement.

To attach a local file

Step 1: Click [Browse].

Step 2:  Select the file on your computer and click [Open].
•  The file appears under the heading Items to Attach.
•  You also have the option to remove the document, by clicking [Remove] .
Step 3: Click [Continue] to attach the document.
Step 4: Click [Add Announcement] or [Preview] or [Cancel]

Note to Mac users: When uploading or attaching a file, you must include the file's extension. If there is no extension, anyone who attempts to display or download the file will get an error.

To attach a file from Resources

Step 1:  Scroll down to Select a Resource.

•  Your folders and files in the site resources tool (if any) are displayed.
•  If desired, click the Show Other Sites link to see documents and drop box folders from all your sites.
Step 2:  Once you have found the item, click [Attach a copy] , which is found under Actions to the right of the item -You also have the option to remove the document by clicking [Remove].
Step 3: Click [Finish] to attach the document to the announcement.
•  To attach a URL
•  Type the URL in the box provided - e.g. http://www.bradley.edu
•  Click [Add].
•  Click [Continue] to attach the URL to the announcement.

Optional: You can send an email to notify site participants about the new announcement.
In the Email Notification field, select from the options shown below:

None - No notification (default setting).If you do not want the notification emailed
Low - Only participants who have opted in. If you want to send the notification only to participants who have chosen to receive low-priority mail notifications
High - All participants. If you want all participants to receive email notification

To post the announcement:

• Click [Add Announcement].
• To see how your announcement will look before posting it, click [Preview].
• To exit area without posting the announcement, click [Cancel].

Merging Announcements
If you would like to view announcements from your other sites in one particular site, use the Merge feature in Announcements.
Note: 0nly participants in merged sites can view the merged announcements.
If a participant is not enrolled in any merged site, they will not view the announcement.

Step 1: In the announcements tool of the particular site, click [Merge] .
Step 2: Click the checkbox (es) of the site(s) you want to merge.
Step 3: Click [Save] to complete the merge or [ Cancel] to take no action.

Specifying Options

Step 1: Select [Options].
Step 2: Select a display option by clicking a radio button. Your choices are:
•  Sort able table view (default view)
•  Sort able table view with announcement body
•  List view with announcement body
Step 3: Click [Update] or [Cancel].

Modifying an Announcement

Step 1: Click [Edit] under the announcement you wish to modify.
Step 2: Follow steps described above for Creating an Announcement
Step 3: To finish revising the announcement, click [Save Changes].
•  To see how your announcement will look, click [Preview].
•  To exit area without modifying announcement, click [Cancel].

Deleting an Announcement

Step 1: Click the checkbox (es) to the right of the announcement(s) you wish to delete under the header Remove?

Step 2: Click [Update] and an alert will ask if you are sure you want to delete the announcement(s).
Step 3: Click [Remove] to delete the message or [Cancel] to take no action

TOP