Create a post or announcement in iTunes U for web
Use the Posts pane to communicate additional information around a particular outline topic to your students. Posts can add your voice and context to the course. For example, a post can contain instructions, explanations, summaries, and context around a specific topic and associated assignment. Use the announcements feature within posts to send announcements to your students at any time. Unlike posts, announcements are not associated with any topic in your course outline and can be simply administrative notices to your students. For example, a canceled class or a change to a test date.
When creating a new post, assignment, or announcement for a private course, keep in mind that iTunes U immediately sends the post, assignment, or announcement as a push notification to your students. For a public course, instead of sending a push notification immediately, iTunes U sends a push notification for the first new post, assignment, or announcement within each five minute period. Push notifications trigger a course refresh so the new post or announcement is immediately visible to your students. iTunes U displays the new post (in-session course only) or announcement at the top of the student’s list.
Create a post for a course
In iTunes U
for web, click 
in the Posts pane for the course where you want to create a post.Choose an outline topic from the Topic pop-up menu, then enter a title for your post (for example, the name of the lesson or topic being discussed).
You can only post to top-level topics in your outline.
Do one or both of the following:
Include a message with your post.
You can use rich text formatting (for example, bold, italics, underline, strikethrough, highlight, alignment, lists, web links, and images) to enter message descriptions or use another tool to create your description (for example, Pages), then paste your description into the message description field.
Include an assignment with your post.
Enter an assignment title and description (for example, the task or to-do), select a due date (in-session courses only), enable grading and hand-in, click “Attach material” to attach a material to the assignment, then click Back.
Click Add Assignment to include additional assignments with your post, or click
to delete an assignment.
Do one of the following:
Click Post.
iTunes U saves your post and updates the Posts pane with the new post information. For in-session courses, iTunes U displays posts in reverse chronological order by post date (in Recent Posts) and by outline topic in chronological order by creation date (in All). For self-paced courses, iTunes U displays posts by outline topic in chronological order by creation date. Therefore, it is important to create posts in the order most relevant to your students.
Click Save Draft, then click Done.
iTunes U saves your post as a draft and updates the Posts pane with the new draft information. iTunes U displays drafts, within the selected topic, in chronological order, by the date you created the draft. Therefore, it is important to create drafts in the order most relevant to your students.
Create an announcement for a course
In iTunes U
for web, click in the Posts pane for the in-session course where you want to create an announcement.Announcements are only available for in-session courses.
Choose Announcements from the Topic pop-up menu, then enter a title for your announcement (for example, the name of the lesson or topic being discussed).
Do one or both of the following:
Include a message with your announcement.
You can use rich text formatting (for example, bold, italics, underline, strikethrough, highlight, alignment, lists, web links, and images) to enter message descriptions or use another tool to create your description (for example, Pages), then paste your description into the message description field.
Include an assignment with your announcement.
Enter an assignment title and description (for example, the task or to-do), select a due date, enable grading and hand-in, click “Attach material” to attach a material to the assignment, then click Back.
Click Add Assignment to include additional assignments with your announcement, or click
to delete an assignment.
Do one of the following:
Click Post.
iTunes U saves your announcement and updates the Posts pane with the new announcement information. In Recent Posts, iTunes U displays announcements in reverse chronological order by the date you created the announcement. In All, iTunes U displays announcements by outline topic in chronological order by the date you created the announcement.
Click Save Draft, then click Done.
iTunes U saves your announcement as a draft and updates the Posts pane with the new announcement information. iTunes U displays drafts, within the selected topic, in chronological order, by the date you created the draft.
To delete a specific post or announcement, hover the pointer over the post or announcement, then click
.
Note: Keep the following in mind when attaching a material to an assignment: when possible use links to attach a material, organize materials on your computer in a directory so you can easily attach a material, and provide original materials used in the lectures (for example, slides, videos, photographs) as separate materials.