In Oncourse, what tools are available for managing site communication?

Two distinct tools, Email Archive and Messages, are available for managing communication between site participants. Additionally, other site tools allow you to send email notifications to participants when you add new items.

Email Archive

You can use the Email Archive to mail all site participants at once. You cannot use it to send mail to an individual or a group within the site.

You send messages using your email account, and recipients receive messages in their email accounts. Copies of messages are kept in the Email Archive tool.

Messages

You can use Messages to send messages to one or more site participants, a defined group, all participants with a certain role, or all site participants at once.

A message you send using the Send Cc option (checking Send a copy of this message to recipients' email address(es)) is sent directly to participants' email addresses, and a copy is stored in their Received folders in the Messages tool.

Note: The Send Cc option appears only if you have used Settings to select Allow sending copies to recipients' email address(es): .

If you do not select Send Cc, messages are stored in the participants' Received folders in Messages. If you want all of your messages automatically delivered to participants' email addresses (in addition to being stored in Received), you can direct participants to change their Messages settings as follows:

1. In your site, choose Messages from the menubar.
2. Click Settings, set "Auto Forward Messages" to Yes, and enter your preferred email address.
3. Click Save Settings.

Note: You cannot reply to Messages from the forwarded email messages; to reply, go to the Messages tool in your site.

Announcements

You can use Announcements to send a one-way communication to your entire site or to a defined group.

All announcements are stored in your site's Announcements tool, and will appear in Announcements in each participant's My Workspace site. Additionally, if you set the Email Notification option to High - All participants, your announcement will be sent directly to all participants' email addresses.

Email notification

Some tools (e.g., Announcements, Resources, and Syllabus) allow you to send email notifications to site participants (at their email addresses) when you add new items. You can specify a low-priority email notification, which will be subject to each participant's notification preferences, or high priority, which will override individually set preferences so that all site participants receive the notification.

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