Sending Messages in Blackboard

As an instructor, you can send messages to all students, one student, or a group of students in your course. This is useful for sharing important updates such as deadlines, reminders, or schedule changes.

About Course Messages

Course messages are different from email. They function as conversation threads within your course.

While announcements are used to broadcast information to the entire class, messages are designed for targeted, conversational communication—such as reaching out to an individual student, a group of students (e.g., those who have not completed an assignment), a project group, or for ongoing back-and-forth exchanges.

You can see the number of unread messages in a red circle next to the “Messages” tab.
All messages for the course appear on the Messages page.
Messages are organized as conversations.
If a conversation already exists between the same users, the new message will be added to that conversation.
If no conversation exists, Blackboard will create a new one.
Students can now reply to all of your messages by default. To reply to your messages, students need to log in to the course and respond through the Messages area.
You can also set up notifications for messages. If notifications are enabled, you will receive notifications for messages from all your Blackboard courses, not just one.

How to Send a Message

Go to your course in Blackboard.
Select the Messages tab from the top navigation menu.
On the Messages page, select New Message.
Choose the recipient(s) for your message. You can select All Students, All Instructors, search and select an individual student, multiple students, or a group you have created in Blackboard.
Select Send an email copy to the recipients if you want recipients to receive a copy of the message by email.

Note: If you send an email copy, recipients will receive the message in their email inbox. However, they cannot reply by email. To respond, they must go to the Messages area in the course.

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Set Up Email Notifications for New Messages

You can choose to receive an email notification when you receive a new course message.

Important: Notification settings are not set per course. If notifications are enabled, you will receive notifications for messages from all your Blackboard courses, not just one.

Steps to Enable Message Notifications

Watch a step-by-step video tutorial on how to enable message notifications(0:39) or follow the steps below -

Log in to Blackboard.
From the left green navigation panel, select your name to open your profile.
Select Email Notification Settings.
Find the New Messages option and make sure the checkbox is selected.
Choose Email me right away if you want to receive the notification immediately.