Instructor Support for Educational Systems

How do I use email in Brightspace?

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It is important to realize that course users might not automatically receive an email when you post an announcement. This is a personal setting. It is set to ON by default, but each user/student can turn this off. If you have an emergency message you want to send to your students and/or staff, you must do so by the below-explained steps.

To comply with the GDPR, student e-mail addresses nor student numbers are shown to other students in the Classlist or in Groups.  

How can I email the users of my course?

The maximum number of recipients is approximately 3000. However, this can be less when the recipients have a long e-mail address. Therefore, we advise you to use Groups and divide your students beforehand. 

Brightspace offers the possibility to email your classlist.

  • Navigate to Course Tools in the navbar.
  • Click on Classlist.
  • Click on Email Classlist.

You can now select whether you want to send an email to your staff, students, or both. Names and email addresses are automatically set to the BCC field so personal information is not shared with users on the Classlist

You can also email a selection of users of your course. Choose your filter under the dropdown menu  next to View By. After filtering, select only those users you wish to email. If you would like more information on the use of the classlist, please refer to this article. 

Clicking on Send Email automatically opens a new Brightspace-window  where you can write your message. Note: If you choose to send an email to All you will also send the mail to yourself. You can remove yourself from the BCC or send a mail via the tab Student to prevent this from happening.

Find sent emails

When you want to find your previously sent emails you can use the envelope icon in the minibar.

1. Click on one of your courses (for example, your Sandbox) 

2. Click on the envelope icon.

3. Click on Email

You will be directed to a page where you can compose a new email. If you click on Sent Mail on the right, you will see your sent emails from every course.

Compose an email to contacts in your address book

When you want to send an email to contacts in your address book, you can use the envelope icon in the minibar.

1. Click on the envelope icon.

2. Click on Email.

You will be directed to a page where you can compose a new email. 

1. You can select who to send the mail to by clicking on Address Book and selecting a name/email-address.

2. You can choose the desired Subject of the mail. This will be visible as title of the email.

3. In the Body, you can write a text, add a video or a link. 

4. You can also add a file as an attachment by clicking on Attachments at the bottom. 

5. In order to send the mail, click on Send

Send an email to Groups

In order to send an email to (certain) groups you need to:

1. Select the groups you want to send the e-mail to, or select the checkbox next to the Group Category name in order to select all groups in the category.

2. Click on Email. A new window will open.

To ensure the privacy of the students, the email addresses are automatically added to the BCC field.

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