Communicate with students in a course

There are multiple ways instructors can communicate with students in a CN course. 

Make a Course Announcement

If you teach a CN Pathway course, you can make a course announcement. The announcement will appear on the top of the course page to all course members. The details of this feature can be found in this article. 

Email Individual Students 

Note: Only institution users and premium CN accounts can send out CN emails. 

1. From a student's mini profile card. In most places (e.g., on a post, reflection, Roster, DropBox, GradeBook), user names are links. Hovering over a name link will pop open the user's mini profile card. You can then click the email icon to send the person a CN email. The email will be sent to both the user's CN account and their email inbox. They can respond from either place. 

2. From a student's profile/ePortfolio. You may also click a student's name or profile image to go to their profile/ePortfolio. Then, use the "Message" button from the top to send the person a CN email. 

3. From CN site-wide message tool. Another place to email one or several individuals is from the Email icon located on the universal navigation bar. After you click the COMPOSE button, the CN email form will appear. 

Note: This Email dropdown is also where you can check incoming messages and the entire CN email history. For incoming messages, CN also sends a copy to your email address. They may land in your Updates or Spams folder. Please check these folders and mark them "Not Spam". You can respond to a message both in CN and from their email inbox.

Read this article to learn more about the CN email tool

Email a Group of Students

1. From the course Email tool. You can always use the Email tool above the course post feed to email either the entire course or specific groups. For the latter, you need to use the Groups feature to set up groups first. 

Note: you can also use this course Email tool to message individual students. 

2. Message Students from the course GradeBook. If you need to message students based on their submissions or performance on an assignment (including quiz), you may leverage the "Message Students" option on the assignment from the instructor GradeBook. 

The screenshot below shows the conditions for you to determine the recipients of the email. You select a condition, draft the message, and send it to the students who meet the condition.

3. Message Students from the course Roster or the Analytics page. You may also message students from the course Roster. Click the button in the top-right. 

Or, you could access the same function by visiting the Analytics page and clicking "Message Students" in the "Inactive Learners" section. 

You will then be able to select students based on their overall course participation and completion status. You select a condition, draft the message, and send it to the students who meet the condition.

Post and Engage Students in Social Discussions

When you have a learning resource to share, a topic to ask for students' opinions, or an optional event to announce, you may post on the course feed. Your students will receive notifications about your new posts and engage in a conversation by commenting on the posts. 

You may highlight a post (push it to the top of the course feed) and/or share the post URL via an email to encourage students to comment on the post.