As many instructors are already aware, Blackboard provides two tools that may be used as the basis for correspondence between faculty and students: the Email tool and Course Messages. As described in our support document, Using Blackboard Email, the Email tool creates a conduit in your Blackboard course from which students and instructors can send email to a user's UHCL email account. However, no emails may be received in Blackboard and they are not a part of the course records in Blackboard. The Course Messages tool, on the other hand, creates a class-specific email system within a Blackboard course. All course messages are sent and retrieved from within the Course Messages tool in the course.
Until our recent Blackboard upgrade, many instructors avoided using Course Messages because it required that they log into each course separately to retrieve and respond to message from students. However, the latest version of Blackboard now includes a Messages link on the landing page, from which students and faculty can quickly see a list of their courses, see if they have any messages waiting, and they can open the Course Messages to respond to or write new messages without ever entering a course! The new feature is called the ULTRA Global Messages page and it makes using Course Messages a much more user-friendly option than in years past.
