Blackboard Tech Tip: Course Messages

Contributed by Henry Newkirk, Instructional Designer II (HSH)

As many instructors know, Blackboard provides two similar communication tools often described as "email" -- the Course Messages tool and the Email tool. For a quick refresher about these two communication tools, we recommend you review our team's support document, "Using Blackboard Email." That handout provides a side-by-side comparison of the Course Messages and Email options.

In this week's Blackboard Tech Tip, I'll turn our attention to the Course Messages tool. What is the Course Messages tool, and what are its benefits to students and instructors?

• Instructors may opt to use the Course Messages tool to store all course-related communication within the Blackboard courses, providing an accurate and readily retrievable accounting of faculty-student messages.
• Maintaining course communications in Course Messages helps both students and instructors from dealing with additional messages in the UHCL (or other) email inbox.
• Another advantage is that the Course Messages tool can be accessed from within specific courses (if instructors have made it available) AND from the Blackboard Global menu, as shown in the screen capture accompanying this article. Global menu access enables both instructors and students to identify messages waiting for them in any of their courses upon logging in to Blackboard.

How, when, and why would I use Course Messages in my Blackboard class? Instructors often use Course Messages to provide a secondary (and private) communication channel between you and your individual students. In addition to whole-class communication via Announcements, Discussions, etc., encourage students to communicate privately with you about the questions/concerns while maintaining a record of that communication within the Blackboard course.

How do I create a link to the Course Messages tool within each Blackboard course? If you don't have a Course Messages link on your course menu, follow these easy steps to add one:

1. Navigate to the top of your course menu, roll over the Add Menu Item icon (plus sign within a circle), and select the Tool Link option from the drop-down menu.
2. Enter a name for the Course Messages tool link on the Add Tool Link box.
3. Select the Course Messages option from the drop-down menu in the Type field.
4. Check the box next to "Available to Users" and click the Submit button.

Your new link will appear at the bottom of your course menu. You can use drag-and-drop or the Keyboard Accessible Reordering link to change the link's position within the menu.

For a quick overview of how the Course Messages tool works in Blackboard's original course view shells (the format used in UHCL's current cloud-based system), please watch Blackboard's video Course Messages in the Original Course View. You may also find the newer Blackboard video Messages in Blackboard Learn with the Ultra Experience of value. UHCL's Blackboard system uses Blackboard Ultra base navigation, which provides the Messages option on the Blackboard landing page when you log in but haven't yet entered a specific course (as seen in the first 15 seconds of the video). For information provided in the rest of the video, you can ignore information regarding course shells that use the Ultra experience.

TIP: If you use the What's New module as an entry page, you will be notified when you log into the course when there is a new message.

For more information about Course Messages or any other Blackboard tool, please contact OIT's Support Center. A member of the Support Center staff will create a help ticket and assign it to the IDT team, and a member of our team will get back to you as soon as possible (typically within two business days).