Assignment Dropbox

Overview

The Veracross Assignment Dropbox allows students to submit their assignment work digitally from the Student Portal. If a class is configured to have the dropbox “enabled” (read more about configuration options here) the dropbox can be used by students to upload assignments and submit feedback for an assignment. Student assignment submissions are received and tracked directly in the Gradebook. Teachers can preview the file and provide students with feedback about their submission. In addition, the Assignment Dropbox can be integrated with Google Apps allowing students to submit work from their Google Drive.

Dropbox Submissions

Submission Workflow

Assignments are based around a special dropbox submission workflow. Each student assignment dropbox can be in one of three different states: Closed, Expecting, Received.

CLOSED means that submissions are no longer allowed for this student on this assignment.

EXPECTING means that the dropbox is open and the student is allowed to submit files & comments for this assignment. It also means that the teacher has not received a file yet for this student. The submission status of expecting is communicated throughout the teacher portal using an orange triangle in the lower left hand corner of a cell.

RECEIVED means that the student has submitted one or more files for this assignment. Students may continue to submit files even when the dropbox status is “received”. The submissions status of received is communicated throughout the teacher portal using a green triangle in the lower left hand corner of a cell.

Assignment Dropboxes can be managed on a per student basis but also in batch for all students.

View Dropbox Submissions

When a student submits a file for an assignment, the submission is entered as an entry in the feedback conversation between the teacher and the student. (See Feedback section below) Students may submit files as long as their dropbox status is “Expecting” or “Received”. Each time the student submits the assignment, it is recorded as a separate submission entry in the Feedback conversation. The submission is stamped with the date and time when the student clicked “submit”.

Multiple Submissions

The teacher may decide to request another submission from the student. This can be done informally by leaving the dropbox open and asking the student to resubmit their work. Resubmission can also be done in a more formal way. The teacher can change the Submission Status back to “Expecting”. This will indicate to the student that they are expected to do something additional with this assignment. Once they resubmit files for that assignment, the status will again be changed to “Received”. This can go on as many times as the teacher would like. Remember, because the dropbox can be managed on a per student basis, it is possible for different students to have different expectations from the teacher. When the teacher would like to stop further submissions from students, they may close the dropboxes for one or all students.

Late Submissions

Veracross will not automatically change the score or completion status for student assignments. It is up to the teacher to decide whether a student’s submission is officially “late” or not. The Gradebook will indicate to a teacher that a student still has an “expecting” submission after a due date, but that information is just to help the teacher decide how she would like to formally evaluate the assignment for that student.

Students are allowed to submit files for an assignment as long as the dropbox submission status for that student is “Expecting” or “Received”. The due date will not prevent further student submissions after it has passed. It is at the teacher’s discretion to stop allowing submissions from students on a particular assignment at any time.

Student Portal Submissions Process

Students are able to submit files (with a max size of 25MB) for their assignments from two different contexts within the student portal.

Student Submission Contexts

• From the Student Homepage (using the Submit Assignments portal component)
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• From the All Assignments tab of the class screen
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Submission Window

• Select Assignment (optional)
• Select File

Feedback About Scores and Submissions

Feedback

Teachers may choose to send feedback to a student about their performance on a particular assignment. The feedback conversation is a back and forth between the student and the teacher. Teachers may send feedback to students at any time. Students are only able to send feedback to teachers when they submit their work to the dropbox. Once their file is submitted, the feedback conversation returns to teacher feedback only.

Teachers may also send email notifications to students by selecting the “Notify Students” button. Clicking this button will send the notification immediately.

Feedback Notifications for Students, Parents, Advisors, & Homeroom

Teachers may choose to send assignment notifications to students, parents, advisors, and homeroom teachers in addition to the student.

• Notify Students
  Clicking the “Notify Students” button will immediately send an email to the student, providing a summary of the assignment and a link to the assignment detail in their portal. The link will bring them straight to the assignment detail on the Classes tab.
• Notify Parents
  Clicking the “Notify Parents” button will immediately send an email to the student’s parents providing a summary of the assignment and a link to the assignment detail in their portal. The link will bring them straight to the assignment detail on the Classes tab for that student. If a teacher enters feedback for students, parents will also be able to view the note in their portal.
• Notify Advisor
  Clicking the “Notify Advisor” button will immediately send an email to the student’s advisor. This email provides a summary of the assignment details.
• Notify Homeroom
  Clicking the “Notify Homeroom” button will immediately send an email to the student’s homeroom teacher. This email provides a summary of the assignment details.

Google Doc Integration (optional)

If a school uses Google Apps for managing documents and files, Veracross will be able to be configured to integrate with Google Drive.

Integration Workflow

• After the official launch, contact an Account Manager to request that Veracross enable Google Apps integration for the school.
• After integration is configured, students and teachers will be asked to authenticate their Google account upon their next login. This is a one time process.
• A Google Authentication window will open and redirect the student or teacher to Google where they can grant Veracross access to their Google drive.
• After a student or teacher has authenticated their Google account, then they will be able to select files from their Google drive during assignment submission or teacher feedback.