Google Assignments

Google Assignments are a way to create an assignment in Moodle and have students submit files or documents from Google Drive. Once submitted, instructors can markup the file, leave comments, and assign a grade or complete a rubric. This activity works especially well for submitting work in Google Docs because students do not have to download their Doc in PDF format and upload to Moodle. Instructors can also modify the Doc directly before returning to students.

Create a Google Assignment

To create a Google Assignment:

Go to your Moodle course and
Add an activity
Select Google Assignment
There are lots of options to set. Only two are important for most users:
- Provide an Activity Name
- Set up Grading. If you don't want to grade in Moodle or the assignment is ungraded, select Grade → Type → "None". Otherwise set a point value and an optional grade category.
Click Save and Display at the bottom of the page.

The first time a Google Assignment is created for each course, you will need to link your Swarthmore Google account to the activity. Google Assignments will request access your Google Drive to allow files to be shared with you. Both the instructor and students must agree to link their accounts to use the Assignment activity.

Working with a Google Assignment

Click on the Google Assignment in your course to see the details of the assignment and a list of submissions. The view of the Google Assignment in Moodle is minimal. The page shows a few details of the assignment and how many students have made submissions.

You can set or edit:

Optional due date
A grading rubric
Enable originality reports (checks submissions against content on the Internet for plagiarism). Students will be able to see the plagiarism report for their own submissions. This works for Google Docs in English.
Click on the "pencil" icon to change the title or add instructions for students.

After students make submissions, entries will appear in a table. Clicking on the entry will show the files the student has uploaded.

Viewing and Grading Student Work

Clicking on a student name in the Google Assignment website will show a list of files the student has uploaded. Clicking on each file will bring up the file in a window.

For text documents, it is possible to make comments inline with the text or highlight text and add a comment to the side. Use the Comment button to create a new comment:

Students can see direct edits to a file before the file is returned to them. Students cannot see comments or overall feedback until the file is returned to them.

Click on the Grading icon to enter a total point value and/or overall feedback text.

Click on the Comment Bank icon to create a list of comments to quickly add to papers. Once a comment bank is set up, type # in a comment box to see a list of predefined comments.

More Help and Details on How Google Assignment Works

Additional documentation on this service: Google Assignments Help Pages

It is possible to create a standalone Google Assignment that does not use Moodle. Visit assignments.google.com to get started.

Google Assignment modifies permissions on student submitted files to allow instructors to see and grade content without students changing it. See the Google Assignment Help Page on How instructors and students share files for more information.