Google Docs and Blackbaud

Matthew Dunn

We migrated all of our teachers away from Google Classroom this year and are moving with a full and new Blackbaud implemenation. We've been able to link our google drive as a school so students can submit google docs for assignments. Google classroom had a feature where the teacher could upload one google doc and the system would make a copy for each student (instead of the teacher making individual documents for each student). Does anyone know if Blackbaud has a way of doing this with the google drive integration or have any suggestions about how to possibly do something like this?

Kathy Hannon

We have our teachers set the link to "copy" example: from https://docs.google.com/document/d........tCYEZvE/edit to https://docs.google.com/document/d........tCYEZvE/copy This forces the students to a copy of the document.

Jess Moxsky

Kathy Hannon:
We have our teachers set the link to "copy" example: from https://docs.google.com/document/d........tCYEZvE/edit to https://docs.google.com/document/d........tCYEZvE/copy This forces the students to a copy of the document.

This is a fantastic solution! If you haven't already, I'd love to vote on a feature like this in the ideas portal as well!

Megan Day

The Google Drive integration really only lets students submit Google Docs and there isn't much control over sharing notifications. Currently, everytime a student submits a Google Doc, the teacher gets an email notification. Might not be terrible for elementary school teachers but for teachers who have 5+ classes of students, it can be overwhelming. Blackbaud still doesn't support a way for teachers to attach things from Google Drive to an assignment. Even with the Drive piece set up, the teacher has to share the document in Google Docs and copy/paste the link to the assignment.

Since you're migrating from Google Classroom I suggest you take a look at the Google Assignments LTI integration. It basically allows teachers/students to mimic the workflow of creating/submitting/grading/returning assignments from Google Classroom. While currently, the Google Assignments integration still doesn't allow for the “automatically make a copy for each student”, it does a much better job of handling student submissions (no obnoxious email notifications), giving feedback (a comment bank where you can save and reuse comments), and returning assignments (students get an email letting them know their assignment has been graded and returned to them). It's also easy for students to re-submit second drafts of assignments without wiping out the first draft and every draft is saved in teacher's Google Drive.

We initially used the workaround method that @Kathy Hannon mentioned but I think most of our teachers now just put the shared link in the assignment and their students know to use File > Make a Copy on the Google Doc.

Priscilla Lopez

@Kathy Hannon
This is good workaround for now but that Google Assignments Attach button would be ideal.