BlackBoard Question of the Week

Q. I posted an announcement in my Blackboard course.  Why did I receive an email of that announcement?

A. Announcements are sent to students in your course, and a copy of the announcement is emailed to you, automatically, by default. At the bottom of the email that you receive you will see this message:
“This is a system notification sent based on your personal settings and should not be replied to. Click here to view and edit your Notification Settings.”

To change this setting for your course, click on Notification Settings in the email, select your course, then uncheck the Email box next to Announcements. You can also change these settings in Blackboard by clicking on My Places at the top of the Blackboard window, then on Notification Settings Dashboard in the My Places window.

Be aware that students in your course can do the same thing when they receive emailed announcements from your course, i.e., they can choose not to receive those announcements. To be sure they will receive an announcement, even if they have made the choice not to in their Notification settings, be sure to check the “Override User Notification Settings” box under the Message box when you create a new announcement.

Q. When I post an announcement to Blackboard and click the box to also send the announcement as email, that email has embedded in it an extra character: a capital A with an accent mark above it. Is there a way to prevent this?

A. When you type two adjacent spaces in a Blackboard announcement that you send as an email, you get that extra character. You can use the Enter key without getting the character, but avoid typing two spaces in a row.