All communication forms are of great importance in e-education. This is also true for one-way communication forms such as notices and news . Notices for participants can come from various sources, primarily from the lecturer/instructor , but also from the system administrator. The lecturer/instructor usually reminds the participants of the upcoming deadlines , although the LMS can take over a significant part of such tasks based on the curriculum of a certain course/subject. The participants often have activity calendar at their disposal in which they can see their short-term obligations (e.g. for the next week) or their overall obligation through the course/subject (e.g. until the end of the course and assessment deadlines).
Notices are also used when participants should be notified of changes in planned activities , and notices related to synchronous activities are particularly important. For example, if a chat or a videoconference session between the participants and the instructor/lecturer was arranged for a certain day and hour, the participants should be notified timely about the postponement. The lecturer/instructor who was prevented from participating in such synchronous activity at the arranged time (in the case of illness, urgent meeting, travel etc.) should notify the participants as soon as possible that there have been some changes in the timetable of their obligations. Due to the importance and urgency of certain notices, it is sometimes recommendable to use e-mail for timely announcements to the participants , under the assumption that the participants check their e-mail more often than they log into the LMS. Also, more and more people divert their e-mail to mobile phones, so their attention will be quickly drawn to the arrived message with very little time delay in relation to the moment in which it was sent by the lecturer/instructor.
When a system administrator sends notices, it is usually with the intention to notify the participants and lecturers/instructors of the past or expected events which already have or will soon affect working in a certain LMS, as well as its availability to the participants (e.g. for equipment maintenance, malfunctions, repairs to the electrical installations etc.). Notices are also a means used by the administrator to notify the participants and professors that there has been a certain change in the regime of the work of the computer system, LMS etc (e.g. installation of new software, additional communication tools etc.).
Tips & tricks: In order to show interests for the participants and their needs, as well as help them to organise and start fulfiling their assignments before the deadlines, try to use, as often as possible (low profile) the opportunity to send the users all possible notices. It is particularly important to foresee possible difficulties in getting used to working in an LMS or ambiguities in the descriptions of the assignments, and send timely instructions or explanations. Notices and news are a useful means of encouraging the participants’ interest and their activation in different group activities (chat, discussions forums etc.). Try to use the faster means for more urgent messages, including e-mail and instant messaging (e.g. SMS messages) if the participants are to be notified of something particularly important for them.
