Messaging in Blackboard allows us to contact other course participants in a convenient and simple way.

We can send a message to any user or users enrolled in the course, whether they are instructors or students. The message can be sent from the Ultra base menu by selecting the course/organization we want to access, or from Messages in the top menu of any course or organization.

As soon as you access, you will see, both in the base menu and in the course menu, if you have unread messages. You can access them by clicking on them. This will display the full message thread on the screen.

Viewing a message thread

Message threads work more like a conversation than an email thread. Your messages appear on one side, and those of the other participants in the thread on the other, along with their avatar.

Each time you write to the same people, even if it seems like a new message, that message will be added to the thread you have with that person or people. If you add another participant, a new thread will be created containing that new participant, and the messages prior to that point will be invisible to this new participant in the thread.

In general, it works more like WhatsApp than email. Keep that in mind.

Creating a new thread

To create a new message thread, click New Message.

This will open the interface to compose the message. To facilitate sending, the platform has organized several user groupings:

Then we will compose our message and check Send a copy by email to recipients if necessary.

Sending messages from other places in the course

Imagine you are in the gradebook grading an activity. You apply some filters and narrow down to students who have not yet submitted the assignment. Or in the group management tool, you need to contact users of a specific group. Wherever you see the envelope icon, clicking on it will allow you to start sending a message to that person or those people.

There are many contexts where you can send messages to students to enable closer follow-up. These messages will appear in Messages.

Configuring the messaging tool

If the administrator has configured the tool to be editable from courses, you can change the sending options from Course Settings.

Allowing AVA to respond to messages will activate the AI assistant, which can then reply to student messages directed to the instructor with information available in the course, such as "When is the second unit assignment due?" or "What day is the final exam?"

You can also enable/disable messaging entirely if allowed by the administrator. In that case, the Messages item in the top menu will disappear, and it will not be possible to view any interaction with students within Blackboard. Messages, in that case, are sent by email and the thread is maintained in the participants’ email accounts.

Finally, you can configure whether students can send messages to everyone, only to their groups and institution staff, only to staff, or if they can only reply to received messages, not being able to start a thread.