Some announcements perfectly capture what you’re trying to say about a concept or an assignment, and you know you will want to use that item again in the future. So, what to do when you’re asked by your instructional designer “Do you want me to copy your announcements forward?”

The sticky part of having all those old announcements is getting the ones you want to use timed to appear exactly when they’re needed and making sure the others don’t show at all. Timing is everything. Here are a couple of strategies for dealing with announcements from a previous semester.

Our Recommendation: Copy/paste

When asked about your old announcements, say “no, don’t copy my announcements forward.” Then, when you need to reprise an old announcement, simply go to your previous course and copy it. Come back to the current course and paste it. This is our recommendation for a few reasons:

• Chances are what seemed like a perfect announcement could use a little updating or tweaking.
• This strategy reduces clutter in the Announcement tool.
• You won’t have to delete unused news items or delay posting.
• You can more easily see the old announcements in the context of the old course and can better evaluate its place in your current course.

Manage Dates Tool

If you do have your Announcements copied forward, you’ll need to delay posting so only the items you want appear when you want them to. You can either set the announcement to appear exactly when you want it to. Or, you can set the announcement to appear far in the future, and reset the date when you would like it to appear.