Tips for Teaching Professors

Share this post

Tech Thursday: Make a Copy

higheredpraxis.substack.com

Discover more from Tips for Teaching Professors

Resources, teaching tips, best practices and professional development opportunities for faculty.
Over 2,000 subscribers
Continue reading
Sign in

Tech Thursday: Make a Copy

Change the link so that collaborators are prompted to make their own copy of a Google Drive file.

Breana Bayraktar
Jan 14, 2021
Share this post

Tech Thursday: Make a Copy

higheredpraxis.substack.com
Share

One challenge with using Google drive for collaboration is that the default sharing settings allow collaborators to view documents, and you can allow edit access - but sometimes we want students to each have their own copy of a file so they can work independently rather than collaboratively. There’s not a simple or obvious way to share personal copies - but there is a tricky hidden method that works well.

“Make a Copy”

In the past I created videos to walk students through how to make a copy of a file for their own use, but I inevitably would get emails requesting edit access each time I shared a file. This eliminates all of that!

Directions for creating the “Make a copy” link:
  • Go to the sharing dialogue, select "get shareable link", select "anyone with link can view" then select "copy link".

  • You should have a link that looks like this:

    docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/<spreadsheetID>/edit?usp=sharing

  • Then change the last part to /copy instead of /edit?usp=sharing so that it looks like this:

    docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/<spreadsheetID>/copy

  • Use that link when sharing and the person you are sharing with will get a prompt to "make a copy" when they click it.

If you want to still have access to each student’s work, you’ll have to ask them to share the new document back to you, which is a bit clunky. (I know this process is much simpler for folks using Google Classroom - this is the best work-around I’ve found for the rest of us.)

Request a future TIP topic!

Share Tips for Teaching Professors

Follow @breana

Past Tech Thursdays
  • Providing audio feedback

  • Canvas “What-if” grades

  • Working in shared Google docs

  • Managing references

  • Custom URLs & QR codes

  • Text Expanders

  • Interactive quizzing

  • Screen share in Zoom

  • Mailbird email program

  • Using screenshots

  • Voice-to-text options

  • Wheel of Names (random name generator)

  • Collaborating in Google Slides

Share this post

Tech Thursday: Make a Copy

higheredpraxis.substack.com
Share
Previous
Next
Comments
Top
New
Community

No posts

Ready for more?

© 2023 Breana Bayraktar
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start WritingGet the app
Substack is the home for great writing