Canvas & Dropbox Integration for Assignment Submission?

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mlittrell
Community Novice

Is there a wise way to have students submit responses to Canvas assignments in the form of a PDF file?

In a different (not Canvas) LMS, I saw an example of Dropbox integration where student assignments came in, were automatically timestamped, saved to a convenient location in Dropbox (for example, all submissions of a particular assignment were all in the same folder), and so forth. Super convenient and no file download required on the part of the instructor, from what I understood.

I really do NOT want to download files if it can be avoided; preferably, I would like to view them online so I can grade them one-by-one, without having to download some massive .zip file or equivalent. From what I understand of Canvas, if students submit responses to an assignment as PDF files, the only way I have access is to download a .zip file containing their individual submissions. 

I saw this video, which seemed to hold out the possibility of Canvas <--> Dropbox integration, but when I created a sample assignment, I realized that it's not what I expected; all it permits is transfer of files from Dropbox to Canvas; what I want is a folder in Dropbox with all their assignments. 

I know I can make file request links in Dropbox, but I saw no harm in asking for the collective wisdom and experience here, while I continue to mess around and see what might work. Someone may have a wiser solution. Thanks in advance...

1 Solution
rmurchshafer
Community Champion

Hey Mark,

If your students submit files of the types PDF, Word, Excel, Powerpoint, or typical image formats there is no need to download them to grade.  Canvas has a tool named SpeedGrader which will display all of those file types right in the grading interface.  You can even mark up those types of file submissions with comments.  

Let me provide a couple of links which might help.

 

How do I use SpeedGrader? 

https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-26201-how-do-i-grade-a-file-upload-submission-in-speedgrade... 

How do I add annotated comments in student submissions using DocViewer in SpeedGrader? 

How do I use a rubric to grade submissions in SpeedGrader? 

Hope that helps,

Rick

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