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Communicating with your Class

Canvas Announcements

Announcements allow you to post messages to your course and are sent to students according to their notification preferences (the default setting is to notify students via email immediately). This is the preferred method of class communication.

 Features Include:

  • Send and view announcements from within Canvas.
  • ITS recommends uploading files and emailing links instead of attaching files to an announcement (more info).  Attachments are limited to one file per announcement.
  • Notifications via email include subject, full text of message, and attachment link (if available). The sender is always Penn Carey Law Class Notification.  
  • Automatic subscription of enrolled students and instructors.  Faculty who add additional users to the course will also be subscribed.
  • Archiving of messages within Canvas.
  • Allows Registrar and Library to send messages to classes.
  • By default, students will not be able to reply to Announcements. Instructors can change this setting to allow replies. If allowed, replies go to the entire class and appear in the Announcements archive.

IMPORTANT: Announcement notifications are only sent if the course site has been published.  Students will still be able to view the Announcement in the archive in Canvas once the site is published - but the email notification will not be sent. Be sure to publish your course site so students can see it before adding Announcements to ensure that the email is sent.

To make an Announcement:

Open Announcements

From Canvas (https://canvas.law.upenn.edu), click on a course and then click the Announcements link.

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Add Announcement

Click the Add Announcement button.

Create Announcement

Type a title for the announcement in the topic title field [1] and add content in the Rich Content Editor [2].

In the Announcement Options, you can delay the posting of your announcement [3], require students to reply to a post before seeing other replies [4], enable an announcement podcast feed [5], and allow students to like announcement replies [6].

When you are finished editing, click the Save button to post the Announcement.

 

Why am I not receiving notifications for an Announcement I sent?

By default Canvas sends notification emails to everyone in the course except for the sender of the announcement. If you would like to receive a notification for an announcement you created, you need to update your Canvas notification preferences.

From Canvas (https://canvas.law.upenn.edu), click on Account and Notifications in the left menu. Locate the notification preference Announcement Created By You and select the first option to ‘notify me right away.’ For more information on configuring Canvas notifications, see their online guide.

 

 

Announcement Replies

You can enable/disable the ability for students to reply to Announcements. If enabled, replies go to the entire class and appear in the Announcements archive.

 

go to course Settings

Navigate to the course you want announcement replies enabled/disabled for and click the Settings link.

 

 go to “more options”

Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on More Options link.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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enabling Replies to announcements

To ENABLE replies to entire class, uncheck the box that states “Disable Comments on Announcements.”

Lastly, click the Update Course Details link.

 

More Info about Announcements:

 

For more information, visit the Canvas guides on Announcements
OR
Watch a video on Announcements

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