Understanding Canvas Announcements - What happens when I import announcements to a new Semester

When you copy an entire Canvas Course from one semester to another, course announcements also come over.  It can be tricky to understand how these copied over announcements behave in your new course. 

I’ve compiled a list of notes and suggestions to help understand how Announcements work:

• When creating new Announcements, add a delay date to the posting.  Even if your delay is minutes when you originally want to post, the post date will be adjusted along with all your other event and due dates when you copy your course.
• After copying a course, go through Announcements and delete any Announcements that are not applicable for the current semester.  
• No Announcement will be sent when a course is not published.
• If an Announcement post date is before the course publish date, students will be able to see the announcement in the new Course, but will not receive an email notification when the course is published.
• Any Announcement that does not have a delay post date will be viewable to students when the course is published.  These announcements are not sent to students unless you edit the announcement.  After editing and as soon as you save the announcement, it will be emailed to the address students have set up in their notifications, unless you have set up a delay date.

For more information on how Canvas Announcements work, feel free to look at the PSU Canvas Learning Center on Communicating with Students, contact Canvas Help or contact one of the Learning Designers in Dutton. 

~ Jane Sutterlin