[Daniel Alter]

So, I created a post and published it. For some reason the students did not recieve an e-mail notification……… Now I am trying to email all the members with the text of the post but can not get a list of members. I can go to the users in my dash board but can’t translate it to the compose email?????????????

Help

[Professor Faculty]

I’m not quite clear on what you mean Daniel by ‘translating it to the compose email’–you could, though, email the students by copying the email addresses on the ‘users’ page and emailing them directly. It’s a clunky solution, but can be done.

Or you could post a message like that to the discussion forum, which should generate an email to all users.

We are in the process of adding an ’email users’ function to the site, which will give you an easy way to email everybody in the class. Not quite ready yet, but it should be soon.

Any thoughts, though, as to why the students didn’t receive email notifications when you posted?

Best,
Scot

[Daniel Alter]

Hello Scott,

I really have no idea as to why they haven’t recieved this post; they have in the past. The only diffrence is that I had it as a “Draft” and then published later the next day. I’m not sure if that had anything to do with it.

As far as copying the emails from the user page, you would have to do it one at a time; and only if you open another tab. Going back and forth the content in the text doesn’t remain but rather a new compose email launches every time.

I do thank you for the suggestions of discussion board, I haven’t thought of that but will do so now.

Thanks,

Danny

[Bree Zuckerman]

Hi Danny,

You can email your students through the course home to notify them of the post. To do so, go to Course Home > Admin > Email Options. Under email options, you can choose to send an email notice to all members of your course.

I hope this helps, and please let me know if you have any questions!

Thanks!
Bree

[Bree Zuckerman]

Sorry, I didn’t see the post from Scott and Danny’s reply when I wrote that. You guys are quick!

One more thing: I actually thought that site users won’t receive an email when there’s new content posted on the course site in the same way they receive notifications about activity that happens in the course home (docs, discussion forum activity, etc)? But perhaps I’m mistaken?

Best,
Bree

[Daniel Alter]

Thank you Bree, I had forgotten about that feature on course home page…..

Is that true? How can I get an email notification to everyone, anytime, anyone starts or comments on a post. Or is that more Discussionish like? Sorry if these are silly questions.

Danny

[Bree Zuckerman]

Hi Danny,

No, those are not silly questions at all! There is a plugin that can automatically notify site subscribers of new posts, but it’s not something we have installed right now (that I know of). Perhaps it’s something to discuss as a feature to add in the future. However, one thing that will generate an automatic email is when someone comments on a post. Perhaps this is what you were thinking of in terms of post notifications? You would have gotten automatic notifications when your students commented on your Welcome post, for example.

For now, I would say the easiest thing is to email all of your course members through the course home if you want to announce a new post or update on the site. And, anything you do on the course home, such as posting to the discussion forum, or adding/editing a doc, will send out automatic notifications.

Best,
Bree

[Scott]

Bree’s right about this, of course–emailing through the course home is probably the best short term solution. But I did have to do something similar in another context (without our nice email course members function) just this morning. And I realized that, at least in hotmail (which I admit I’m the last person to use), if I highlight and copy all the users from my wordpress site (including the avatars, the usernames, everything), then paste it into the ‘to’ bar on my email, hotmail filters out everything that isn’t an email address, leaving me with an email addressed to all users in the course. A bit silly, but I thought it was cool, and I’m sure I’ll find some use for it someday.

Best,
Scott

[Jody R. Rosen]

I heard from an ITF at Macaulay that there was a problem with the plugin that allows users to subscribe to email notifications. I don’t know more about it, but we’d want to look into that before adding the plugin to a features requested list.

If you copy the whole page of your students and contact info from Blackboard, I know that you can paste it into a document and it’s automagically formatted as a table. Then you can just copy that column of the table. Don’t know if it’s the same thing copying from the OpenLab.

Jody