Notifications

What is the Notifications tool?

The Notification tool allows a CourseLink user to receive messages about activity in their course sites. Users can receive a periodic summary of all new activity through email and/or receive instant notifications when certain events happen through email or SMS messages.

Notifications are available for activities involving several CourseLink tools such as:

Announcements
Content
Discussions
Dropbox
ePortfolio
Grades
Quizzes

Accessing the Notifications tool

The Notifications tool can be accessed after logging into CourseLink by following the steps below:

From the CourseLink Minibar, select your name (top-right)
Select Notifications from the menu

Using the Notifications tool

Setting up an email contact method

By default, email notifications are automatically sent to the email address associated with your CourseLink account. To change these settings, follow the steps below.

Click on the Change your email settings link
Select the Use custom email option and enter your email address in the text field
Click Save

Setting up a mobile contact method

Notifications can be sent directly to your mobile phone. To associate a phone number with your CourseLink account, follow the steps outlined below.

Click Register your mobile on the Notifications page
Select your Country, your Mobile Carrier, and enter your Mobile Number in the form
Click Save
After you receive a registration confirmation code on your mobile device, enter it in the Confirmation Code field
Click Confirm

Contact Methods settings link for Mobile

Subscribing to a summary of activity

Users may choose to receive a daily summary of all the activities in their courses by subscribing to a Summary of Activity that will be delivered to the user via email daily at a time of their choosing.

On the Notifications page, select the delivery frequency you want from the How often? drop-down list
Select when you want to receive your summary from the At what time? drop-down list
Click Save

Subscribing to instant notifications

Users can select to be notified immediately about any of the items listed under the Instant Notifications section by either email or SMS.

On the Notifications page, enable instant notifications for specific course activity and updates by doing any of the following:
- Select the Email check box to enable email notifications
- Select the SMS check box to enable SMS notifications
Click Save

Customize Notifications

Customization options are available if you want to include your grade value in Grades notifications, and if you want to allow past, future, and inactive course enrollments to send you notifications.

Go to the Customize Notifications section on the Notifications page
Select the check boxes beside the options you want to enable

Excluding courses from notifications

You can exclude specific courses from sending you notifications.

Click Manage my course exclusions in the Exclude Some Courses section on the Notifications page
Click the Exclude icon beside each course you want to exclude, or click Exclude All Courses to stop all course notifications. You can also use the Search field to find the course you want to exclude
Click Close
Click Save

Exclude Some Courses - manage exclusions link

Restoring excluded course notifications

Click the Manage my course exclusions link in the Exclude Some Courses section on the Notifications page
Click the Restart notifications icon beside each course you want to receive notifications from, or click Restore excluded courses to restore all excluded courses. You can also use the Search field to find the course you want to restore
Click Close
Click Save

Manage Course Exclusions - Restore excluded courses options

View Related Tutorial Videos

When and why is it a good idea to use the Notifications tool?

The majority of the settings for notifications are intended for student use, however there are some that may be relevant to instructors as well.

Keeping on top of discussion activity in your course site

If you are actively engaging with your students via the discussions tool, you may want to subscribe to notifications for a specific forum, topic, or thread to be altered when another user posts, allowing you to reply promptly if required.

Even if you are not actively engaging with the students in the discussion, it may be beneficial to subscribe to certain discussions to keep tabs on how active they are and who is participating. It is recommended that if you are using it for this purpose that you choose the Summary of Activity option in your notification settings to receive a daily summary of all activities rather than individual messages for each post.

Site building with your TA or co-instructor

If you are creating a course site using the content tool with another user such as a TA, course coordinator, or co-instructor, then enabling the notifications for Content - content item created, or Content - content item updated will alert you when any new content items are added or modified. Please note that if the module under which the content is created is set to draft (hidden) no notification will be sent.