Announcements
The Announcements feature lets you post announcements for students and others.
Feature Basics
All instances of this feature are essentially a window into the same announcements, the only difference being that some instances might show announcements posted to base (global) roles, and some might show only those announcements posted to context-specific roles.
In the default view of the feature, users see the titles of the announcements that they have permission to see, along with (typically) the authors’ names.
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In the maximized view, users see the title and details of the announcements. If any announcements are new since the logged-in user last looked at the feature, they are grouped under a New subheading, while announcements the user has already seen are listed under Viewed.
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If the user has already seen all announcements, the system omits the New and Viewed subheadings (and all items are just listed under Inbox).
If the logged-in user has permission to create announcements, the maximized view includes a Manage menu. Additionally, any announcements that the user has already posted are displayed under an Outbox heading, and all announcements sent by all users are displayed under an All Announcements heading.
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When setting up an instance of the Announcements feature, you may want to consider the following:
Do you want the instance to show all announcements posted through the feature, or do you want to show just those announcements posted to context-specific roles in the context that hosts the feature instance? For details, see Choose the Type of Announcements the Feature Instance Will Show.
Should the feature instance allow for anonymous posting? For details see Allow or Disallow Anonymous Announcements.
Which roles should be allowed to post announcements? Should any roles be allowed to manage and delete other people’s announcements? For details, see Managing Permissions in the Announcements Feature.
For each instance of the Announcements feature, you can choose one of the following two options:
Context-Based—With this setup, the feature instance displays only those announcements sent to context-specific roles the user belongs to within the host context. Announcements sent to the user by name are not shown, and announcements sent to base roles are not shown.
General—With this setup, the feature instance displays all announcements the user has permission to see, regardless of where in the portal the announcements were created, and regardless of the type of role to which they were posted. This includes announcements sent to the following:
The user by name
Base roles to which the user belongs
All context-specific roles to which the user belongs
With either of these two setups, the information contained in the feature instance is not specific to that instance. The Announcements feature always simply offers a window into a single set of announcements. However, with the “General” window, the scope of the window is larger.
Note that when you add a new instance of the Announcements feature to a page, the default setup is context-based, but the setup of some feature instances created by the JICS installer (after a new installation) may be general. Of course, for any feature instance, you can change this setting.
Note
If the Announcements feature instance is located in a context that has no context-specific roles, it will function as a general feature instance, regardless of which configuration option you choose.
To choose the type of announcements the feature instance will show:
Log in to the portal as a member of the Administrators role or someone with Can Admin privileges in the appropriate context, and navigate to the page that contains the Announcements feature instance.
Click the wrench icon in the upper-right corner of the page.
The admin bar displays.
Click the Settings link in the admin bar.
The system displays the Settings screen.
Select the Announcements feature from the drop-down list of features. (Note: If the feature is on a page of its own, this drop-down will not appear, and you can skip this step.)
The system displays settings for the Announcements feature.
In the area labeled Portlet Type, choose either General or Context-Based, as appropriate.
Click Save changes.
For each instance of the Announcements feature, you must decide whether people creating announcements will be allowed to do so anonymously. By default, this is not allowed.
You cannot prohibit a feature instance from displaying anonymous announcements that were created elsewhere, but you can prohibit anonymous posting in all feature instances (eliminating the issue).
Log in to the portal as a member of the Administrators role or someone with Can Admin privileges in the appropriate context, and navigate to the page that contains the Announcements feature instance.
Click the wrench icon in the upper-right corner of the page.
The admin bar displays.
Click the Settings link in the admin bar.
The system displays the Settings screen.
Select the Announcements feature from the drop-down list at the top of the screen. (Note: If the feature is on a page of its own, this drop-down will not appear, and you can skip this step.)
The system displays settings for the Announcements feature.
In the Allow Anonymous Posting area of the screen, select or deselect the checkbox as desired.
Click Save changes.