How to use Custom User Alerts in Blackboard Learn

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Custom User Alerts can be set 1) to appear as a pop up message when a student first logs into a course or 2) to appear at the top of the course page.

Faculty can access the Custom User Alerts tool by navigating to Course Management in the left hand menu in their courses. Under Course Tools, select Custom User Alerts.

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To create a new Alert, select Add Alerts.

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Under Select Recipients, select either All Course Users or Selected Student(s). To select a specific student or students, click on Browse.

Inside the Browse pop-up window put a check mark next to the names of the individuals that will see the Alert. Then select Submit.

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After selecting Submit in the Browse pop-up window, confirm that the correct names appear next to Selected Student(s).

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Enter the text for your Alert in the Message box. You may use the HTML Editor to format any text that is entered.

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Tokens: To automatically personalize Alerts, faculty may wish to use Tokens when creating the text of the Alert. Below is the First Name Token: @X@ras.firstname@X@

Tokens are case sensitive, so make sure the X is capitalized.

For more about Tokens, visit the Rasmussen Faculty Guide to Blackboard Learn (Password AAOPD): http://guides.rasmussen.edu/facultyguidetoBlackboardLearn/tokens

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Enter the start and end dates that correspond with the dates that the Alert should display.

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Choose the Display Method you want for the Alert.

Choosing Top of Course Home Page will show your alert at the top at the page.

Choosing Pop-up Window will display as a pop-up when the student enters the course.

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Top of Course Home Page Alerts: Students click the X to "acknowledge” that they have read the Alert and this will remove the Alert from the page. These alerts will not re-appear when a student leaves and then reenters the course, UNLESS an instructor sets the alert to “always display.”

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Pop-up window alerts must be acknowledged by the student before they can click anywhere else or navigate in the course.

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Choose a Display Status color to indicate the urgency of the Alert.

Green = OK Yellow= Warning Red= Urgent

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Always Display determines how often the alert will appear upon log in. The description reads, “Display the alert regardless of the user having previously acknowledged it. Please exercise caution when making alerts always display, as this can frustrate users.”

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Faculty can return to the Custom User Alerts dashboard to review student acknowledgements of the various alerts. In the Acknowledged column, faculty can click on the blue hyper link to view a list of students that have acknowledged the Custom Alert.

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Within the Custom User Alerts dashboard, faculty can edit the alerts by clicking on the text in the Subject column.

Note: Alerts for single users cannot be edited once they are acknowledged. A new alert would need to be created in this case.

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Faculty can also delete or archive previous alerts by selecting the box to the left of the alert recipient list and clicking on Delete or Archive. Deleting alerts will remove them completely from Learn. Archiving preserves alerts and allows you to copy them from course to course each term using the tool Copy from Another Course.

Note: At the end of each term, you should archive alerts that you wish to use again in another course

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Under Course Tools, use Copy from Another Course to copy these alerts from course-to-course.