Reply in Announcements

[jeff_plant]

Why do some announcement show a "Reply" and others don't? I would like to turn off "reply". It shows even when I deselect the "Allow Participants to Comment"

[NoahBoswell]

Hey @jeff_plant ,

Thank you for posting on the Instructure Community!

You can automatically disable all comments by navigating to your course settings and ticking off the Disable Comments on Announcements button. This is located at the bottom of the settings page. 

If you'd like to check out a guide with more information on this topic, feel free to check out this link here: https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Instructor-Guide/How-do-I-disable-announcement-replies-for-an-ent...

Hope this helps, all the best!
- Noah

[Chris_Hofer · Accepted solution]

Hi @jeff_plant ...

I tested this out in my own sandbox course, and even though I did not select the "Allow Participants to Comment" checkbox, I could still see an option to "Reply" when viewing the announcement.  However, when I used the "Test Student" account to view the announcement, I see a message that says, "This topic is closed for comments."  So, students would not be able to add comments to that particular announcement.  I hope this helps a bit.

[NoahBoswell]

Aha! I didn't even give that a thought. You're correct, teachers can always respond to announcements regardless if it's enabled or not.

[jeff_plant]

Thanks!  When I went to the setting to “ disable all” it was grayed out. But when I looked at student view, they did not have an option to reply if the announcement did not allow comments. Whew…that was confusing. Thanks for your help

[NoahBoswell]

I just wanted to add an additional comment here too! If the setting was grayed out, that means your Canvas Admin is prohibiting you from disabling comments on all announcements, and you'll have to do it manually for each one.

I hope that additional information helps a bit, too! It would be best to reach out to your Canvas Admin if a change needs to occur.

[jeff_plant]

Thanks for your help Noah!