Blackboard’s “Send Email” feature allows you to send an email message to anyone associated with your Blackboard course. The message will appear as if it was sent from your student VCCS email account, and it will go to the recipient’s VCCS email account.

Blackboard only allows you to send email messages. It does not allow you to read your email. This also means that you can not read email messages that you have sent from Blackboard. So, whenever you send a message through Blackboard, make sure to send a copy to yourself as proof that the message was sent. To view the messages that you have sent through Blackboard, plus any replies that you might receive, you will need to check the Inbox of your VCCS student email account, (http://email.vccs.edu).

Note: Blackboard’s “Send Email” feature does not allow for more advanced formatting features, (bold, italics, font colors, etc.), or a spell-check feature as the VCCS student email program allows. 


1. To access “Send E-mail,” click “Communication” from the menu on the left.

2. Click the “Send E-mail” link.

3. You will see several options for sending e-mail messages.

• All Users – Allows you to send a message to everyone in the class.
• All Groups – If your instructor has divided the students into groups to work on projects, you can send a message to everyone involved in all of the groups.
• All Teaching Assistant Users – If your class has teaching assistants, access this area to send a message just to those people.
• All Instructor Users – Allows you to send a message just to your instructor(s).
• Select Users – This option provides a list of all the people associated with your Blackboard course and allows you to choose those you wish to e-mail.
• Select Groups – If your instructor has divided the students into groups to work on projects, you can send a message to everyone involved in one or more of the groups.

Click the link for the e-mail tool that you wish to use. For the purposes of this tutorial, “Select Users” will be demonstrated.

Select Users

The message will automatically be addressed to everyone associated with the Blackboard course.  If you wish to remove recipients, delete their names from the list. 

Enter a title for your e-mail message in the “Subject” textbox. Type your message in the “Message” textbox.

If you wish to attach a file to your e-mail message, click the “Add” button in the “Add Attachment” section.

Click the “Browse” button and locate the file that you wish to attach. When finished, click the “Submit” button to return to the previous page. You will see the name of your attached file in the “Add Attachments” section. You may add another file by clicking the “Add” button again.

When your message is ready to send, click the “Submit” button at the bottom of the page. You will receive a “receipt” telling you that the message was sent.