Staff can post announcements on Mallard. This serves as a convenient way for staff to be sure that students are notified when there is an important message. Many Mallard faculty expect students to read announcements regularly. Typical examples might be a change in office hours, exam information, etc. When a new announcement is posted, an icon on the menu bar (and also on the homepage) changes. A student currently using Mallard will see the changed icon notification; other students will see a new announcement notification when they next log in. Mallard keeps track of which announcements each individual student has read and will display the "New" icon for a student precisely when there is an announcement that that particular student has not yet read.