The message feature of Blackboard is similar to email--it allows you to communicate privately and securely with students and instructors in your course. However, to access messages you must be logged into your Blackboard course.

Accessing and Composing a Message
Replying to a Message
Organizing and Deleting Messages

 Accessing and Composing a Message

1. To access Blackboard Messages, from the Course Menu, click on Tools. 
   
                     
   
   
2. Click on the Messages link.  
   
   
   
   
3. This will take you to the Messages page. From here you can check your Inbox, view your Sent messages, and Create a new message to send. You can see how many messages are in each folder and how many of these remain unread.
   
   
4. Click the Inbox or the Sent folder to access these messages.
   
   
   
   
5. You can compose a message from the Messages home page, the Inbox folder, or the Sent folder. To compose and send a new message, click the Create Message that is present on each of these pages.
   
   
   
   
6. Click To in order to select recipients for your message.
   
   
   
   
7. Click an individual’s name, and then click the right-facing arrow to select an individual and send them to the box on the right hand side of the screen. You can select more than one name by pressing Ctrl and clicking another name.
   
   
   
   
8. Under step 2, fill out the message’s subject and body text. Click Submit. You will be redirected to the page you clicked the Create Message button from, with a Success confirmation. 
    

Replying to a Message

Once you receive a message, you can reply to it or forward it to another individual.

1. From the Messages page, click your Inbox folder to access your new messages. Click the name of the message you would like to read/reply to in order to open it.
   
   
   
   
2. Click Reply to send a response to the message.  You can reply to the sender, or reply to all the individuals who received the message.
   
   
   
   
3. From the Reply to Message screen, you can add recipients in step 1; in step 2, type out your response to the message. The text of the original message will remain at the bottom of the body.  Click Submit.
   
   
4. You may also want to forward a message that you have received to more individuals. After opening the message from the Inbox screen, click the Forward button. 
   
   
   
   
5. Click the To button to select who you would like to forward the message to. After selecting names, you must click the right-facing arrow to bring them to the Recipients box.  You can also add your own text to the body of the message. The original text will remain at the bottom of the message. Click Submit.

Organizing and Deleting Messages

You can organize (by marking as read or unread) and delete your messages by accessing the message’s action menu via its chevron.

1. From your Messages page, click either the Inbox or Sent folder to locate the appropriate message. 
   
2. Click the chevron associated with the message you would like to mark or delete.
   
   
   
3. From the drop-down menu, select the action you would like to take.
   
   
   
   Note: Deleting a message CANNOT be undone.
   

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