News and announcements

News and announcements

Overview

The platform offers a course level News feed which provides a real-time feed of posts related to the course. The course news feed can inform learners about announcements, new modules, new assessments, new events, postings from instructors and learners, blog posts from instructors and learners, and items from RSS feeds (if used).

The news feed retention is 6 months.
Course, News feed example

Info
Please note that CYPHER for business defaults to the term course. CYPHER for academia defaults to the term class. The terms course and class are interchangeable in this article.

Enabling News for a course or class

To enable the News feature for a course or class:
  1. Access a course or class.
  2. Click Admin from the course navigation menu.
  3. Click Features from the fly-out menu.
  4. Select the News checkbox.
Course, Admin, Features, News checkbox highlighted

Posting to the news feed

As an instructor or teacher, you can post messages or announcements to the news feed.

Message

To post a message to the news feed:
  1. Access a course or class.
  2. Click News on the course navigation menu.
  3. Click + Post. 

  1. Type your message in the text box.
  2. Select the Sticky checkbox if you want the message to stay at the top of the news feed.
  3. Click the File icon if you would like to attach a file.
  4. Click Send.

Announcement

To post an announcement:
  1. Access a course or class.
  2. Click News on the course navigation menu.
  3. Click Announcement.
News page with the Announcement button highlighted
  1. Type your announcement in the text box.
  2. Select the Sticky checkbox if you want the announcement to stay at the top of the news feed.
  3. Click the File icon if you would like to attach a file.
  4. Click Send to post to the feed, or Send & Notify to post to the feed and also send the post as a message all learners in the course. 


Posting to multiple feeds

You can post news and announcements to multiple course and group news feeds at once.

  1. Access a course or class.
  2. Click News on the course navigation menu.
  3. Click + Post or Announcement.
  4. Enter the content of the message.
  5. Click + Set Feeds.
  6. The Set feeds pop-up displays. Select the Courses, Groups, and Paths where you want to post your news or announcement.
  7. Click Add.

Set feeds pop-up with multiple courses selected

The number of selected feeds is visible in the lower left corner of the message editor.

  1. Click Edit feeds if you want to add or adjust the course and group feeds for your message.
  2. Click Send. 
News page post text box with 2 feeds selected and the Edit feeds (2) button highlighted

Assessments and modules

By default, an assessment is announced to the news feed when it is given.

Assessment announcement example
Similarly, by default, a module is announced to the news feed when it becomes current.

Module announcement example

To change the news feed assessment or module settings:
  1. Click Admin from the course navigation menu.
  2. Click News feed from the fly-out menu.
  3. Select or deselect the Announce to the news feed when a new assessment is given checkbox.
  4. Select or deselect the Announce module to the news feed when it becomes current checkbox.
Course, Admin, News feed with the News feed settings all selected and highlighted

Event

When you add an event to the course calendar, you can also post it to the news feed:

  1. Click Calendar on the course navigation menu.
  2. Hover over a date on the calendar and click the + icon.
  3. Add event details.
  4. Click the Miscellaneous tab.
  5. Select the Post to news feed checkbox if you would like the event to be announced on the news feed.
Add event pop-up, Miscellaneous tab with the Post to news feed checkbox highlighted

Blog post

Similarly, when you post a course blog, you can post it to the news feed:
  1. Click Blog on the course navigation menu.
  2. Click the  course blog icon next to your name.
  3. Click + Post.
  4. Type a blog subject and message.
  5. Select the Post notification to news feed checkbox if you would like to notify the news feed of the blog post.
Blog post pop-up with the Post notification to news feed checkbox highlighted

RSS feed

RSS feeds are a great way to keep a course news feed fresh with relevant information. For example, if you're teaching an astronomy course you can add RSS feeds to popular astronomy sites and their news is automatically added to your course news feed.

To add items from RSS feeds to the news feed:
  1. Access a course or class.
  2. Click News on the course navigation menu.
  3. Click RSS feeds.
News page with the RSS feeds button highlighted

The RSS feeds page displays.

  1. Click Add or edit feeds.
  2. Select from the existing feeds you would like to add to the news feed.
  3. Click + Register feed to add another RSS feed.
    1. Note - you will need the RSS feed URL to register the feed.
  4. Click Save.

The RSS Add feed page with multiple RSS feeds selected

Deleting items from the news feed

You can delete any item on the news feed, including posts and comments by learners. To delete an item:
  1. Select News from the course navigation menu.
  2. Click the three dot menu on the right side of the post.
  3. Click Delete.

News feed post with the three dot menu active and Delete option highlighted

Allowing learners to post to the news feed

By default, learners can post messages and comment on announcements on the course news feed. 

To adjust this setting:  
  1. Access the course or class.
  2. Click Admin from the course navigation menu.
  3. Click News feed from the fly-out menu.
  4. Select or deselect the Allow learners to post to news feed checkbox.
  5. Select or deselect the Allow comments on news feed announcements checkbox.

    Course, Admin, News feed with the News feed settings all selected and highlighted

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