The University of Hong Kong Blackboard Vista 8

Email to Students in a Class

  1. Introduction
  2. Setup Procedure (To be done once only)
  3. How to use "Download student email list" function?
  4. How to use "Send email to all students in the class" function?

1. Introduction

WebCT version CE6 has been upgraded to version Blackboard Vista 8 on 28 August 2008.

The following feature is reported by Blackboard vendor that it does not work properly and the vendor is trying to fix it. 

Malfunctioning of mail forwarding function

We have received several reports from instructors that the email forwarding function in Blackboard Vista 8 sometimes fails to work.  After thorough testing, we confirm that indeed some email messages are not successfully delivered to some students (i.e. studentUID@hku.hk cannot receive the email) while some students would receive multiple copies of the same email. 

We have reported the above problems to the Blackboard Support channel and has been urging for a solution. However, we do not know how long it will take them to solve the problem.

Temporary Solution

As an urgent measure, we have implemented two functions "Download student email list" and "Send email to all students in the class" which you can use in Blackboard.

Important Note:

The "Download student email list" and "Send email to all students in the class" include the email addresses of all course instructors and students enrolled in the Blackboard course. However, guest users, teaching assistants and course designers (instructors with "Build" tab only) are excluded in the two functions. As guest users do not have HKU email accounts (i.e. using external email addresses), we are unable to send email to guest users using these two functions.

2. Setup Procedure (To be done once only)

  1. In Build tab, click Course Content.
  2. On the right-hand window, click Add Content Link button.
  3. Select HKU WebCT Additional Services.


  4. Click Create HKU WebCT Additional Services.



  5. In the Title: field, type Email to whole class and click Save button.



  6. In the Course Content, locate Email to whole class link.
  7. Click on ActionLinks for this item icon.
  8. Click Hide Item. (This action is required. If the Email to whole class link is not hided, students will be able to see the two functions but they cannot use them).

3. How to use "Download student email list" function?

The Download student email list function allows instructors to download email address of students in text (.txt) format. Instructors can then use their HKU email accounts to send email to students.
  1. In Teach tab, click Course Content.
  2. On the right-hand window, click Email to whole class link.



  3. Select Download student email list link to download student email list in text (.txt) file

4. How to use "Send email to all students in the class" function?

The Send email to all students in class function allows instructors to send email to whole class directly via Blackboard. Email will be sent students' HKU email addresses (studentUID@hku.hk) within an hour. A copy of the email will be sent to course instructor(s).
  1. In Teach tab, click Course Content.
  2. On the right-hand window, click Email to whole class link.



  3. Select Send email to all students in the class link.



  4. You can then send an email to all students in the class via Blackboard. Enter Sujbect and email content in Body section. To submit the email, click Send button. Your email will be queued in the system and will be delivered to students' HKU email addresses within an hour.





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