Use Brightspace to Notify of Class Cancellations

Instructors can easily use Brightspace to notify students of cancelled classes. By posting a notice in the Announcements widget, you can notify your entire class about a cancellation in one easy step. Depending on how students set their notification settings in Brightspace, the announcement can go to their external email address, as well as their mobile phone.

A resource is available for students to show them how to set up and receive notifications.

Notifying your students is as easy as 1-2-3!

Step 1: Advise your Students.

Add a note to your syllabus and/or use the discussion or mail tool to advise your students how you will communicate class cancellations to them (You will only need to do this once). You can add a link to the CITL resource notice above that shows them how to set up their Notifications to receive these notices.

Step 2: Create the Announcement.

Create an announcement item by clicking the down arrow next to the Announcements widget on your course homepage and selecting New Announcements Item.

Enter a clear headline, such as “Class cancelled for January 19” and some content for the message such as “Class is cancelled for January 19, 2017, due to inclement weather.”

Step 3: Publish the Information.

Click Publish to save the announcement. This announcement will appear in your Brightspace site at the top of your Announcements widget. For students with notifications configured, it will automatically send notifications to their email and/or phone.

Note: This process does not replace any existing departmental regulations around the reporting of class cancellations.

If the Announcement widget is not available in your course site, or you have any problems or questions using Brightspace, please contact CITL’s Support Centre.