Announcements

Announcements are intended for informational purposes: a user who needs to share some important message with others should create an announcement that will be viewed by all course participants (Students and the Teacher). The information will be displayed on the Home Page, as well as on the Course Home page (if other is not specified by the Course Home page settings).
To pass to the Announcements section, click the Announcement icon () in the top page menu.

Fig. 'Announcements'

The home page of this section displays the list of announcements (previous, current or upcoming) for the current month with a possibility of their editing and deleting. The Announcements list displays all announcements that have ever been created, listing them by months. To view only the announcements of a specific month, click its title (for example, June 2008). 

To manage announcements, use the following icons in the top section menu:

Icon	Name	Description
	Add announcement	Allows a user to create a new announcement.
	Announcements list	Allows a user to view, edit and delete announcements that have been added.
	Monthly view	Allows a user to view all announcements for the current month.
	Weekly view	Allows a user to view all announcements for the current week.
	Daily view	Allows a user to view all announcements for the current day.

All announcements are divided into three groups:

• Previous announcements - announcements that are outdated and no longer current ();
• Current announcements - announcements that are valid for the present moment of time ();
• Upcoming announcements - announcements that are not valid yet and will come into effect in future ().

To edit an announcement:

1. Click the Edit button () next to a corresponding entry in the list.
2. Modify announcement properties as described in the Adding Announcements topic.
3. When finished, click Save in the top right corner of the form; click Cancel to discard changes and close the form.

To delete an announcement, click the Delete button next to the corresponding entry in the list. Please note that no confirmation will be required; therefore, it is strongly recommended to be attentive at the procedure of deletion.

To create a new announcement:

1. Click the Add announcement () icon in the top section menu.

2. Fill in the form fields as described in the following table:

   Field	Step
   Starting Date	Specify the date from which the announcement will be valid. You can use the day, month and year fields here or set a necessary date using a calendar icon ().
   Ending Date	Specify the date till which the announcement will be valid. You can use the day, month and year fields here or set a necessary date using a calendar icon ().
   Time released	If you wish this announcement to become published in a certain period after a student's enrollment you can use this feature to determine a period after which the announcement will be published. Check Yes if you wish to enable this feature, otherwise check No. Enter the necessary time period in days, hours and minutes.
   Limit to specific groups of users	Check Yes if you wish this announcement to be available only to certain groups of users, otherwise check No.
   UserGroups	Choose the groups of users for which this announcement will be available.
   Title	Enter the name of a new announcement.
   Description	Enter the full information of the announcement. Use the embedded Visual Editor to format the description text.

3. When finished, click Save in the top right corner of the form to add an announcement; click Cancel to discard changes and close the form.

The Monthly view (), Weekly view () and Daily view () sections of the Announcements section allow a user to keep tracking of announcements in the form of a timetable. If you want to see all announcements per month, week or day, click a corresponding icon in the top section menu. The system will display a table with all announcements available for the specified period of time. To go back to the current month announcements list click on the Announcements list button (). The Announcements list, as well as the Home page of the Announcements section, gives a user a possibility to edit and delete entries.

Fig. ‘Announcements Monthly View’ 

Fig. ‘Announcements Weekly View’ 

Fig. ‘Announcements Daily View’

Clicking on an announcement in the table will bring you to the home page of the Announcements section, where the selected announcement will be highlighted.

Fig. ‘Highlighted Announcement’ 

Tip: To move along the timetable (i.e., to pass to the next month or week), use the back () and the forward () icons in the table. You can also use the calendar icon () in the left top corner of the table to pass to a necessary date.