[Announcements] Publish and Unpublish Announcements

[dhulsey]

I love that Canvas can bring over announcements when I copy content from another Canvas course. This keeps me from copying and pasting announcements I make every semester.  To further develop this feature, it would be nice if Announcements were unpublished on import, meaning the instructor can see them but the students can't. With a "publish button on every announcement, instructors could release announcements quickly when they are needed without the tedious setting of a date and time on each announcement.

This feature would also bring announcements in line with other tools in Canvas that use publish and unpublish functionality and would help instructors who might unintentionally be releasing announcements to students from a past semester.

[aubertj]

No need to delete all of them, but you have to edit each one and set a delay on the publication. This can either be timed as appropriate for a date during the semester OR set for well after the course (if you are just not sure what you want to do with it). Good luck, John

[vrichter]

Please also make the System Admin announcements editable, reusable or copyable.  Every term I recreate the same announcements, when all I need to do is change a date.  Thanks for starting this request.

[alisonsiegler]

This is a very necessary addition to Canvas. Since I can copy course content from prior years, I should be able to "unpublish" all announcements from the last time I taught the course. Then, when I need a given announcement again, I can edit it with new dates/times and send without recreating the wheel. Because Canvas does NOT currently allow me to "unpublish" my announcements from last year, I had to put a "delay posting" instruction on every single announcement, delaying it until a date AFTER the current course is over. Then, when I need a given announcement, I go into the "delay posting" section and change the date so the announcement posts sooner. It's very frustrating and not at all user friendly.

[kbolender]

In my experience, the copying to and publishing of old announcements to new courses is Canvas’s biggest flaw. I like having them available for reposting but do not like the lack of control that comes with that. Correcting this would be a huge time-saver and would also save the confusion (for students) and embarrassment (for teachers) that comes with unintentional miscommunication. 

[sphelps]

It would be great if announcements JUST for faculty and colleagues could be placed, as well. My university maintains the BP masters off which upwards of 100 courses can be taught every eight weeks. It would make communication with faculty teaching each section if we could place and sync an announcement that would appear on the faculties' home page when they enter their course. Thanks!

[tlc_OU]

This is definitely something that would be useful at the University of Oklahoma, where we encourage instructors to copy course information from previous courses (in order to reduce the amount of time it takes to set up their courses). To me, it makes sense for the default to be set as unpublished, so that instructors can make any necessary changes BEFORE making the announcement visible to students. 

[timothy_mckean1]

I like the idea of the Pub / UnPub feature to bring it in alignment with other Canvas tools, and have voted.

But a small nuance I'd like to point out that may help some faculty change the way they see announcements, is that they are never SENT anywhere. (This is why a "Save and Publish" option would be more accurate than "Send".) They are simply posted in the Announcements tool and made available for students there. 

Students may receive a NOTIFICATION when a new announcement is posted to the course IF have chosen to. But this is not the full content of the announcement, just a notification that one is available and some of the text from the announcement.  (I can't remember what default notification settings are on this... it's been too many years since anything in my account has been default.)

As long as you review your existing announcements, and either schedule or delete them before student rosters are synced there will be no notifications sent our about old announcements.  This would only be a problem if you are copying course content into a shell after students have already been added. 

I know it's a minor nuance, but a small part of me cringes each time I read a comment about Announcements being "sent out" to students.   Hope that helps a little.

[demosthe]

Not having an END DATE or UNPUBLISH option either forces me to delete announcements (and waste time remaking them every semester) or forces me to reset the 'delay posting' feature to way in the future. Doing the latter puts all of the announcements I no longer need at the top of the Annoucements page. This is not functional at all. It seems to me that putting an END DATE on announcements can't be that difficult!

[marcia_woodard]

I use the "Adjust Dates" feature when I copy a Canvas course. This feature

not only adjusts the dates on the assignments, it also adjusts the dates on

the announcements. That way announcements are not available to students

until the correct release date.

Marcia Woodard

Senior Associate Faculty

English and Engineering Departments

20000 68th Ave. W, Lynnwood, WA 98036

<https://maps.google.com/?q=2000068thAve.W,Lynnwood,WA98036&entry=gmail&source=g>

| edcc.edu

marcia.woodard@email.edcc.edu <marcia.woodard@email.edcc.edu>

[kburkes]

I assume this will only work if you had release dates set on the announcements in the first place. I don't do it that way, so being able to hide and reveal would work better for me.