I am looking for an option to send off an e-mail to all or some of the participants in a course of mine, and I am unable to locate such a thing. Is it included in Moodle?
Secondly, there seems to be an option of sending off a message to a partcipant, but it does not work it seems (a window opens, but when the send button is clicked, the program seems to transfer infor to or from the server, but that process does not seem to end). Are there any options in the settings that have to be set for this?
You may send email in several ways. If you want to use a forum to generate email, you can set that up and force all members to be subscribed forever. Then, every time you post (or anyone else posts, if you allow replies and/or discussions) each person subscribed to the forum will get a copy.
The second way to send email is to set up something like the quickmail block. If you install it as is, I believe teachers can use it to send email to students. If you add the recommended changes (search for quickmail and you will find the instructions in the discussions), you can make the block available for students as well. Only students can't send attachments even though an instructor may do so.
I am not sure about your messaging problem. If you log in as admin, there is a setting in the configuration files under "permissions" where you set messaging to yes or no. Perhaps you have yours set to "no"?
We chose to use messaging and the quickmail block. Some instructors also use the forced subscribe forum for course announcements. So you may wish to use a combination of tools.
Remember, users who set their email to digest will not receive the messages immediately. They will receive once each day, and as admin, you can set the time.
The second way to send email is to set up something like the quickmail block. If you install it as is, I believe teachers can use it to send email to students. If you add the recommended changes (search for quickmail and you will find the instructions in the discussions), you can make the block available for students as well. Only students can't send attachments even though an instructor may do so.
I am not sure about your messaging problem. If you log in as admin, there is a setting in the configuration files under "permissions" where you set messaging to yes or no. Perhaps you have yours set to "no"?
We chose to use messaging and the quickmail block. Some instructors also use the forced subscribe forum for course announcements. So you may wish to use a combination of tools.
Remember, users who set their email to digest will not receive the messages immediately. They will receive once each day, and as admin, you can set the time.
Thank you for your very informative answer. I'll look into both Quickmail and the setting you mentioned.
Tom
Tom