Dropbox: Record In-Person or Observed Student Work
Table of Contents
Overview
As we may notice, if we use the Grade Item feedback area, while we can provide direct feedback in the textbox, it warns us not to upload any feedback as attachments.
This is because uploads will go to the Course Files area (accessible to Instructors by going to Edit Course>Manage Files), which is accessible to Students*. Instead, we can create a Dropbox folder to record work that has been submitted physically (i.e., in-person or observed by the Instructor). This provides us a secure area where we can provide feedback and upload corrections/manually graded work for the Students' own records.
*It is a bit more complicated than that. It is more like “Anyone in the course with the link can access the file”, but it requires them to know that it exists and for them to, essentially, guess the link. It is a FERPA grey area (particularly if we remove any personally identifiable information), but it is better to bypass this altogether by making a Dropbox.
In the example below, we are going to start with a new Dropbox. However, we can edit a Dropbox by clicking on the Dropdown arrow to the right of a Dropbox and selecting “Edit folder” in the menu that appears.
How to Set a Dropbox to In-Person Work
| 1 | In the Dropbox tab, click on New Folder. | Creating a New Dropbox.
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| 2 | After adding the necessary information, go to the Submission and Completion section. | Highlighting the Submission and Completion section.
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| 3 | Click on File Submission in the Submission Type section. | Highlighting File Submission dropdown. |
| 4 | Choose either On paper submission or Observed in person. | Highlighting the “physical” format options. |
| 5 | When we do, some of the other settings will be replaced with a “Marked as completed” setting. The default is “Automatically on due date”, though there are a few other options as well:
| Highlighting the options for completion. |
| 6 | When done, click on Save and Close. | Highlighting the save and close button. |
| 7 | When a learner goes to review the Dropbox, they will see the title, Start/End/Due date(s), the directions, and/or the Rubric (if we allow them to see it). | Student view of the Assignment.
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