Is there a way to lock a document so that students cannot download it?

[MarciaPRIOR]

we provide students with exemplars to aid them in their assessment, but we don't want them to be able to download the documents.  Can we do this?

[Gabriel33 · Accepted solution]

Generally it's difficult to stop someone from downloading a document that's online, as even if it's a page without a download button, the viewer can usually "print it as a PDF", or at least take a screenshot (maybe LockDown browser can stop that, but I don't know).

Treat any file published in Canvas as something students might be able to download, as they can be accessed by guessing the file ID (unless the file is in an unpublished module).

There's probably a solution (that would make it very difficult, but probably not impossible to download) involving an iframe and an external service, but it's not likely to be accessible.

[NoahBoswell]

Hi @MarciaPRIOR ,

@Gabriel33 is correct, you are not able to prohibit students from downloading documents and files.

A possible alternative would be to embed the document using Google or another platform, but even then, as Gabriel mentioned, students can still take screenshots or screen record. So unfortunately it's kind of difficult to fully stop students from saving these documents themselves.