Source: Own illustration
Whether it’s a last-minute change of schedule, information about exams, or uploading important materials — there are many reasons why course room managers want to contact their students.
RWTHmoodle offers two options for this: announcements and quickmail. In this blog post, we explain the differences between the two functions and how they can be used.
Announcements
The announcement forum is automatically created in every course room. There, course room managers can publish content that remains permanently visible in the course room. Students can only read this content, but cannot respond to it. By default, everyone in the course room automatically receives notifications about new announcements. However, it is also possible to notify only selected participants. It is also possible to add a single file as an attachment to the announcement. In addition, the time of publication can be set in advance.
Quickmail
While the announcement forum is permanently visible to students, the Quickmail function is only visible to managers. Quickmail can be used to send emails to everyone in the course room. Optionally, only certain rights groups or selected individuals can be addressed via Quickmail. Emails sent via Quickmail cannot be read in the course room afterwards. This means that once the email has been deleted, the information and attachments can no longer be accessed. Just as with an announcement, managers can schedule the time of dispatch. Managers can view their own emails sent via Quickmail in the course room. Quickmails from others cannot be viewed.
Differences
Quickmail and announcements appear to be very similar at first glance. The fundamental differences are visibility for students and the attachment function. Content remains permanently visible in the announcement forum, while Quickmail is sent once as an email. The announcements forum is therefore ideal for content that is permanently relevant to the course. Changes that do not have long-term effects, such as a one-time change of date, are more suitable for Quickmail. Only one file can be attached per announcement in the announcements forum. In contrast, Quickmail allows you to send multiple attachments up to 250 MB.
We generally recommend that you do not share important materials via the announcement forum or Quickmail. Instead, these should be uploaded directly to the course room. This makes it easier for students to find the materials and download them together with other materials from the course room via the download center. You can refer to the upload of the files via Quickmail or in the announcement forum.
Extensive documentation on RWTHmoodle is available in IT Center Help. There you will also find more detailed information on the Announcement Forum and Quickmail.
Responsible for the content of this article are Hedda Faber and Verena Grouls.
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