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Message Overview
The ability to send a message to an individual student, groups of students, or the entire class, is available throughout multiple locations within a Blackboard course with centralized access on the Messages tab in the upper main menu. Messages are sent as an email message to the recipient's CMU email account. The Messages Tool is located in the Blackboard course main menu at the top of the page:
Creating a Message
Once in the Messages tab, click on the New Message button to create a new message.
Select your Recipients and enter the message text:
NOTE: There is no subject line field. If desired, enter a subject line as the first item in your message and place it in bold. Start your message a few lines after this.
Click Send
Any Message created in the message tool will also generate an email to the selected recipients. A new message indicator will also display in the recipient's Messages tool as shown below.
An example email message is shown below.
Replying to a Message Received; Who Sees The Reply
If the received email message is replied to by hitting the 'reply' button, the message creator will receive a standard email reply but the email reply will not be included on the Messages tab in Blackboard. Other recipients of the message do not see the replay message -- only the instructor sees this. Replies go to the instructor's CMU email address.
Clicking on the View Message button within the email message (shown above) will take the student or instructor back to the main Content area of the Blackboard Course in which the message originated. The recipient would then navigate to the Messages tab to view the message. If a reply to the message is made from here, all recipients of the message see the response.
Messages in the Message Area of Blackboard can be expanded and replied to from the message area. Any message activity always generates an email.
Below is an example of a message chain in an expanded message view in the Message tool.
Students can also initiate a Message to their instructor via the envelope icon next to the instructor's name.
Students can also initiate a Message to group members they are on a team with via the envelope icon next to their group name.
