How do I send messages to students?

This refers to Moodle 4.3 from August 2024 onwards

Moodle gives you the ability to send an email message to all the students who are enrolled on your module. The email message will be sent to the email address in the student's profile which has been fixed to the student's University of Nottingham student email address. However: there are certain caveats because students are in charge of their own personal settings.

To contact all students in the module using Announcements or (same thing) the Latest Announcements block

The best way to send a message to all your students (all students in a module) is to create an Announcement - EITHER by clicking on the 'Announcements' forum at the top of the module

or, in the Latest Announcements block:

The 'Latest Announcements' block is available in every module (If it is not visible, click the 'Edit mode' toggle switch to the top right of the page.  

Click the 'Add a block' option that appears at the top of the block drawer, underneath the edit mode switch, and select 'Latest announcements' from the drop-down menu.

When something is posted in the 'Announcements' forum:

• It puts a post in the Announcements forum which will remain for ever
• It adds a notification in the 'Latest Announcements' block (this will show only the most recent posts)
• It will go out by email to all participants (including staff) and they cannot unsubscribe 

To send an email to all participants through Announcements

Note: To send a message, it is necessary that the announcements forum is visible to students (not greyed out or hidden: click the three vertical dots and check that Show is chosen)

1. Go into your module
2. Click on 'Announcements' (or go to the 'Latest Announcements' block)
3. Click on the 'Add discussion topic' button (or hyperlink if in the 'Latest Announcements' block)
4. Type a "Subject" and type your "Message"
5. Add an attachment if you wish
6. Click on the 'Post to forum' button
   
   
   
   

The message:

• Appears as a post in the forum
• Is featured in the 'Latest Announcements' block on the right
• Is sent as an email to all students and other participants

You can choose to "Send forum post notifications with no editing-time delay" by clicking on 'Advanced' or - if left unticked, Moodle will give you 30 minutes in which you can edit the text. 

The time of receipt still depends on the user's profile settings for one at a time or digest.

Information about the email

The email is sent FROM the Moodle system – and it will have the module code in the Subject. 

It is not sent from your personal email address (so you will not see a copy in your Sent items). You (or your students) can re-read the message at any time by visiting the News Forum.

However it does have your personal email in the REPLY TO field which means that students can respond by email directly to you. It is up to you whether you enter into a private correspondence or post the answers back in the module for all to see.

Note: You can manage the emails you get from Moodle

This is the best option if:

• You want to be sure everyone gets the message
• The message contains information that students will need to save or read again “Change of seminar room to C30, Physics Building”
• You want the message to be easily found if people need to come back to it

Note: If the message needs action within 24 hours, students set to digest may not receive it in time. This method should not be used for urgent or emergency announcements (use mail through Campus, or an email list for those).

How the student receives the email depends on their settings. They may receive each individual announcement email separately, or, it if this is set in their profile (and it is default for students), all announcements and forum alerts are bundled up in one email Digest per day.  Remind students to check all emails with the subject heading “moodle.Nottingham Forum Digest”. These emails arrive at the end of the day (around 5 pm) so students may not receive an email until up to 24 hours after you post it.

Option 2: To send an email using your participant list in Moodle

1. Select 'Participants' located under the course header
   
   
   
   
2. At the top of the list, tick the box in the top row to select all users
   
   
    
3. When the ticks all appear against each name, drop down "With selected users" and choose Microsoft Excel (.xlxs)
   
   
   
   
   
4. You can then select the cells in the Email address column, copy and paste into the BCC field in an ordinary email.
   
   

   This is the best option if:

   • You want to send an email that will arrive quickly, and directly in students' email inboxes (even if they have their Moodle preferences set to Digest once a day).
   • The message does not need to be kept. Note: This won't be available to read within the module, so you may want to post it as an Announcement also.

Option 3: Use the participants list to send a Private Message

The best way to send a message to students is to email them via the Announcement forum. However, you can also send a message to individual students or a group or small proportion of students on a module, (say up to 15 or so students).

You can use the 'Participants' list to send a Moodle message. You can find the 'Participants' list as a tab underneath the module header.  

In the Participants list, select the tickbox next to one or more students and at the bottom of the page choose from the dropdown menu “Send a message”.

This is more like a text message.

This process sends a message to each student. They receive it in the following ways:

• It shows up as a notification of a message and the message itself goes into their 'Messages' folder in Moodle (and may go by email).
  
  

• As an email. Whether they receive an email depends on their settings. It is possible for individuals to change their preferences on how to receive messages so these defaults of sending emails may have changed. Some individuals may opt not to see any messages at all so you can’t be sure your message got to them. In their messages preferences, they could have set messages notifications as emails on by moving the toggle switch to on.
  
  

Or the recipient may have switched the toggle switch to off, in which case they won't receive an email. 

Note: There is no subject or module context on the message – is it  sent from one person (e.g., a module convenor) to another (student) so you should include the name of the module in the message to give it a context.

This is the best option if:

• You want to send a quick personal message
• The message is informal, quickly read and does not need to be kept
• You don’t need the message to be easily found, as people are unlikely to need to read it again

To send a message to all participants:

1. Navigate to the module (that the students are enrolled on) that you want to email. Select the 'Participants' located under the header. 
2. A new screen will load listing the first 20 students on this module. If you want to message all of the students on this module, scroll to the bottom of the page and click the 'Select all XX users' button. In this example, there are 599 users.
   
   
   
   
3. All users are now displayed on one page. Once you have clicked select all users you are now able to to choose 'Send a message' from the drop down list.
   
   
   
   

5. A new screen will load into which you can compose your message.