Dropbox
The dropbox tool is an area where you can set up folders that users can submit their assignment to. This
eliminates the need to collect paper assignments and helps you track when assignments are submitted.
You can set up separate dropbox folders for each assignment and restrict access to the folders by date
and time, group membership, or special access permissions. Once assignments are submitted, you can
download assignments as zip files, sort assignments by users, check submission times, grade
assignments, leave feedback, and return submissions with comments, all from within the Dropbox tool.
You can also create grading rubrics with the Rubric tool to associate with the individual dropbox
assignment to aid in the management of expectations and provision of feedback.
To access the Dropbox tool, click the Dropbox link on your course navigation bar.
In the Dropbox area, you have several tools available to you.
You can create New Folders (dropboxes), Reorder your existing folders, Delete the folders or Preview
what the folders will look like to students. Note that the student and instructor views for dropboxes are
different and you will want to preview your folders to make sure everything shows up properly for
students.
Creating a New Folder
Drop boxes in LEARN are called folders.
1. To create a new folder, click the
New Folder icon on the tool menu from the Dropbox Folders
page.
2. Enter a Name for your folder.
3. For Folder Type, select if you would like this to be an Individual submission folder (each
students submits their own assignment and is assessed individually), or a Group submission
folder (any member of a group can submit files to a group folder and group members are
assigned a common grade). All group members can see whether a submission has been made
and the feedback that is given.
a. You will not be able to select the Group submission folder option unless you have
already created groups within your course, however you can edit existing folders once
groups have been created or you can automatically create group drop boxes when
creating groups.
b. If you select the Group submission folder option, you will have the option to select the
Group Category. Unless you have different groups created for different activities, you
will likely only have one group category.
4. If you would like to organize your folders into categories (eg. Presentations, Written
Assignments), click New Category or select a category from the drop down list if a category that
you want to use already exists. These categories are essentially headings available to help you
organize your folders. They are not required.
5. Select the Grade Item you’d like to link your folder to from the dropdown list if you have already
set up your grade book, or select New Grade Item. You can also edit this at a later time, if you
want to create the folders first, create the grade items, and then return to associate the folders
with the grade items. You may also have drop boxes that are not associated with Grade Items.
6. Select the Out Of value. This is a mandatory field if you link the folder to a Grade Item.
7. If you want to create a description, enter it in the Custom Instructions field by clicking the
icon. This can contain instructions to students about what they need to do for this assignment.
8. Select Allow users to add this folder to their ePortfolio if you would like students to be able to
add the feedback page of this folder to their ePortfolio as a certified artifact.
9. Under the Attached Files section, you can choose to Add a File or Record Audio to go along
with your folder. This could include further instructions for the assignment, templates they need to
use, etc. Please note, currently, the attached files are still visible outside the drop box Availability
dates. If you would like to add an attachment that is not visible when the dropbox is locked, add it
to the Custom Instructions field.
10. Under the Submission Options section, you can select how many files students can upload per
submission and how many times they can submit. If you cannot see these options, click Show
Submission Options.
11. To set further restrictions and release conditions for your folder, go to the Restrictions tab.
a. Under the Availability options you can choose when the folder is visible to students.
Students cannot see the folder or the instructions outside the availability dates. If you
would like your drop box folder to always remain open, do not set start or end dates. You
can also display the start and/or end dates in the calendar by selecting the Display in
Calendar checkbox.
b. Release conditions allow you to specify requirements that students must meet in order
to gain access to a drop box folder. For example you may require students to view a
certain module or topic, or post something to a discussion board prior to gaining access
to the folder.
If you have already created release conditions elsewhere and want to attach them to this
folder, select Attach Existing and choose the conditions you wish to attach. If you would
like to create a new release condition, select Create and Attach. You will be able to
select the condition type from a dropdown list and specify condition details if applicable.
Once you add/create a condition(s), a dropdown will appear where you will be able to
specify if users must meet All of the following conditions or Any of the following
conditions.
If you wish to remove conditions you have created, either click the
icon next to each condition you want to remove or click the
Remove Condition
Remove All Conditions
icon at the top of the list of conditions to remove all conditions.
c.
Special Access allows you to give certain users access to the drop box folder outside
the regular availability dates (e.g., if you have users who need an extra day to complete
their assignment) or to restrict the folder only to users who have special access. Click the
Add Users to Special Access to select which users you’d like to give special access to.
Users with special access will only see their folder availability dates; they will not see the
normal availability dates that apply to all other users, while other users will not see
special access dates.
12. Once you have set all of the options and restrictions you want, click Save to save the folder. Once
your folder is created you can edit the folder by clicking on the
icon, or view submissions by
clicking on the folder name. You can also edit multiple folders at once by selecting the box beside
the folders you want to edit and clicking the
icon.
Viewing and Managing Dropbox Submissions
To view drop box folder submissions, click on the folder name. Before going into a folder to view
submissions, you can also see how many files have been submitted in total, how many are unread, and
how many are flagged, directly from your list of folders.
Once you enter a drop box folder, you can view submissions by User or by Files.
In the User view, you are shown a list of student names (or groups) followed by their submission.
If you have created a group drop box, instead of a list of student names you will see a list of the groups.
In the Files view, you are shown a list of submitted assignments.
In both views, a number of tools are available to you to help you manage submissions. The following tool
bar appears above the list of users or files depending on the view.
The checkbox
in the tool bar allows you to select all the submissions at once, clicking the checkbox
beside a submission selects that particular submission. The other functions in the toolbar will apply to the
selected submissions. Note that clicking the checkbox in the toolbar to select all the submissions at once
only selects the submission that you can see on that page. The default setting is generally only 20
submissions per page.
You may want to switch this to the maximum of 200 per page. If
you have more than 200 students in your class, you will have to select all submissions and perform any
functions (including saving) page by page.
The download button
allows you to download all the selected files to your computer. The files will be
downloaded as a .zip file.
To download submissions:
1. Select the files you want to download. Students without submission will be ignored for the
download, so you can select everything rather than one by one.
2. Click the
download button and the submissions will be put into a .zip file.
3. A pop-up window will appear with the .zip file, click the link that appears below “Your file is ready
to download.” A File Download window that will appear, click Save. Choose where on your
computer you want to save the file to, and click Save again.
4. Unzip the file on your computer and go into the upzipped folder to view the downloaded
submissions. You will notice that the student files are automatically renamed to include the
student’s name (or group name) and submission time followed by the title the student gave to the
file.
5. The folder will also contain an index.html file which is a summary of the submissions.
6. NOTE: If you don’t want to download all the submissions, you can open or save submissions one
by one by clicking on the submission name. When you click on the submission name,
a File Download window will pop-up, click Open to view the
file, or Save to save the individual file to your computer.
The email button
allows you to email selected students. You can also use the Email All
Unsubmitted Users
button at the top of the page. You could use this to
send reminders to students.
The mark as read
and mark as unread
buttons allow you to mark submissions as either read or
unread to help you keep track of when submissions come in. Marking things as read/unread will also
clear the notifications that may appear on the Course Home page. You can also mark submissions as
read/unread by clicking the envelope icon beside the submission name. As well, downloading
assignments will change their status to read.
The delete files button
allows you to delete files from selected users. You can also click the
delete button beside each individual submission.
You can also Flag submissions by clicking the
Flagged items have a
Flag icon by the submission name.
red flag icon, while unflagged items have a
white flag icon. Flagging items
allows you to search for flagged items, and it can serve as a reminder or a way to organize things, but it
does not have any further functionality with the learning management system.
Both the Users and Files view also have search/filter functionality. If you cannot see all of these search
options, select Show Search Options.
You can View By user or group, Search for students names, filter based on Submissions (with or
without) and Feedback (with or without). Under the Files view you can also filter by Read Status
(read/unread) or Flag Status (flagged/unflagged). Once you have selected the criteria you want to
search/filter for, click the Search button. To return to the original view, you will need to click Clear
Search.
Providing Feedback and Grading Dropbox Submissions
You cannot provide feedback to all drop box submissions at once time. Instead feedback must be
provided one submission at a time. In order to provide feedback you must fist view the drop box folder
submissions by clicking on the folder name.
Once you enter a drop box folder, you can view submissions by User or by Files. Feedback can only be
added from the Users view.
In the User view, you are shown a list of student names (or groups) followed by their submission.
To provide feedback:
1. Click on the Leave Feedback link and you will be taken to a Leave Feedback page.
2. Under the Submission section, you are once again given the opportunity to view/download the
file by clicking on the file name, download all files by clicking on the Download All Files button or
email the user by clicking on the User name.
3. Under the Assessment section, enter the score for the assignment.
4. Under the Feedback section you can provide your comments about the submission. You can add
your comments by clicking on the
icon.
5. Under the Attachments section you can Add a File (e.g., their submission with
feedback/corrections) or Record Audio to add verbal feedback.
6. Once you have finished adding feedback, click the Save button.
7. You will be automatically returned to the list of students and submissions. Notice that the Leave
Feedback link for submissions that you have added feedback to has changed to Feedback Left.
8. You can click on the Feedback Left link to view the feedback page again and edit your feedback
or delete feedback by clicking the Delete this Feedback
button at the
top of the page. If you delete feedback, the Feedback Left link will change back to Leave
Feedback.
9. Feedback from the Dropbox will be automatically sent to Grades if you have your drop box
linked to a grade item.
The Student View of Dropbox Folders
Students and instructors have very different views of the drop box folders. While instructors see the folder
submissions, students see the folder instructions and have the ability to submit to the drop box folder.
Instructors can preview drop box folders by using the
Preview function or by switching to
Student Role.
When students click on the Dropbox tab in the navigation bar, they will be taken to the Dropbox Folders
page. This page will have a list of all the drop box folders.
Open (available) drop box folders will appear as blue links. Folders that have not opened yet or are
already closed will appear as black text and students will not be able to access the folders or any
information contained in them (including instructions). If there are group folders in the course, students
will only be able to see the folder for their own group and it will be identified as a group folder by
automatically adding Group x: to the beginning of the folder title.
Students can view their Submission History for a folder by clicking on the number that appears below
submissions. They can view their Score under the score column and Feedback by clicking the
View Feedback icon under the feedback column.
If you selected Allow users to add this folder to their ePortfolio when creating the drop box folder,
students will see an
Add to ePortfolio button at the top of the Feedback page.
This will let the students add the feedback page of the folder to their ePortfolio as a certified artifact.
When students click on the Folder Name, they are taken to the Submit Files page. From here they will
see the folder information, such as the Folder Name, Instructions, and Attachments that the instructor
has added under the Folder Information section. In the Submit Files section, they will be able to Add a
File or Record Audio (e.g., for an audio assignment) and add Comments about their submission.
If the folder has a limited number of submissions, once they have reached the submission quota they will
lose ability to make a submission,