Instructor cannot access TA-created collaborations

[adriw]

I've not found any answers to this, hoping someone here can help.

A faculty member has started her first Canvas course. Her TA set up groups of students, and for each group created a Google Doc collaboration. The instructor cannot access these documents, even after being invited by the TA. Her words:

"(My TA) invited me to Collaborate on the Google Document via Canvas. When I click on the collaboration document in Canvas I simply get the message from Google Docs that I am not authorized to view the document. It isn't an error message in Canvas itself.  Yes, it is the same google account. And yes, this occurs with all of the collaborations.

My TA then went to the Google Document directly, not through Canvas and invited me to collaborate using Google and that works fine. It seems that granting access to a Google Document through Canvas does not grant permission (Canvas and Google Docs aren't talking....?).

We are now just collaborating on the Google Document as we would without using Canvas which effectively works the same way but with no "middle man"."

Are we missing something obvious? And is there a listing of "things a TA cannot help with" set up for higher ed folks?

[jlafrance · Accepted solution]

Hi  @adriw ​,

Do you know if the instructor has their Google docs web service connected in their Canvas profile? This lesson shows where/how they can check. Each collaborator will need a Google account and will need to authorize Canvas to access his or her Google account to use Google Docs to collaborate. Also, if the TA is the owner of the collaboration, they will have to turn on the Share settings to allow others who have the link to edit the document.

Does this resolve the issue?

[adriw]

Thank you Deactivated user​

The instructor gave up and switched to direct use of Google Docs, and is not available for troubleshooting. But given that Canvas pretty much demands connection to Google Docs when entering Collaboration, I don't think this is the likely problem.

My guess is one of the following happened:

1. She authorized her Apps for EDU account in Canvas, but her TA invited her personal Gmail account (which she uses regularly)
2. The TA invited her correctly, but the authentication requires a bit of time and she was too quick to access.

It has been my experience with Google Apps in general that when the campus has the EDU Apps but a student or instructor has a personal Google account, they find it difficult to recognize which account they are signed in as.

I'll leave your answer marked as correct.

[jlafrance]

Ah, ok. Thanks for the follow up,  @adriw ​! If you have any other questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

Have a great weekend!