Desire2Learn 8.3

Working with News

News items are an ideal way to inform students about upcoming events, due dates, or corrections. Items posted here appear in the News widget for all students to see. Once created, News items can be modified or removed by selecting the appropriate option in the News widget.

Creating News Items
Changing the Order of News Items
Modifying News Items
Deleting News Items

Creating News Items

News items are an ideal way to inform students about upcoming events, due dates, or corrections. You can create News items ahead of time and specify the date they will appear. For News items that you will use from semester to semester, set an end date. This will remove them from the News at the appropriate time during the current course but will preserve them so that you can copy them forward for future semesters' courses.

From the My Home page, in the My Eau Claire Courses widget, click the course in which you would like to add a News item
The Course Home page appears.
In the News widget, click NEW NEWS ITEM
The New Item page appears.
In the Headline text box, type a headline for the News item
In the content text box, type the body text for the News item
To apply basic formatting to the text of your news item, use the toolbar buttons
To apply advanced formatting to the text of your news item,
1. Select the Advanced tab
2. Use the tools on the Advanced toolbar as needed
OPTIONAL: To set a date for the item to become available,
1. In the Availability section, from the Start Date pull-down lists, indicate the desired start date
  HINT: To select a date from the calendar, click SELECT DATE
2. From the at pull-down lists, select the desired time of day
  NOTE: To have the post date displayed with the Headline, select Show Start Date Beside Headline
OPTIONAL: To have the News item removed on a certain date,
1. Select Remove News Item based on End Date
2. In the Availability section, from the End Date pull-down lists, indicate the desired end date
  HINT: To select a date from the calendar, click SELECT DATE
3. From the at pull-down lists, select the desired time of day
OPTIONAL: To add an attachment,
1. Click ADD A FILE
  The Submit a File dialog box appears.
2. Click BROWSE...
  The Choose file dialog box appears.
3. Using the Look in pull-down list, navigate to and select the file you wish to attach
4. Click OPEN
  The file appears in the first text box.
5. To add another attachment, click ADD
6. To remove an attachment, next to the desired file, click REMOVE
7. Click UPLOAD
If the News item is ready to post, click SAVE
If you would like to create another News item, click SAVE AND NEW

Creating News Items in HTML

Writing News items in HTML provides you with options for customization including color, justification, and hyperlinking. You can either write the code yourself or use Desire2Learn's HTML Editor.

Changing the Order of News Items

By default, new News items are presented first (i.e., appear at the top of the News widget). Previously created items move down in the list. However, you can change the order of News items at any time.

From the My Home page, in the My Eau Claire Courses widget, click the course in which you would like to modify a News item
The Course Home page appears.
From the Course Home page, in the News widget, click REORDER NEWS ITEMS
NOTES:
The Re-Order pane appears.
Items created appear with the default sort order indicated.
In the Sort Order column, use the pull-down list to select or type the number representing the place in order in which a given item should appear
Click SAVE

Modifying News Items

Once posted, News items can be modified.

From the My Home page, in the My Eau Claire Courses widget, click the course in which you would like to modify a News item
The Course Home page appears.
From the Course Home page, in the News widget, for the item you want to modify, click EDIT
The Edit Item page appears.
Make the desired changes
For more information, refer to Creating News Items.
Click SAVE

Deleting News Items

If you will be reusing some News items from semester to semester, do not delete them—set an end date. To remove a News item, follow these instructions:

From the My Home page, in the My Eau Claire Courses widget, click the course in which you would like to delete a News item
The Course Home page appears.
Click DELETE
A confirmation dialog box appears.
Click DELETE
The News item is deleted.