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There are many ways that students can submit work via the OpenLab, each with different advantages and levels of complexity. Whatever you decide, be sure to include instructions to submit work along with the assignment’s instructions.

When choosing how you want students to submit assignments, consider the format you’ll need to evaluate any work.

  • Do you want students to submit work you can read directly on your course site, or files that you can download onto your computer?
  • Do you want students to be able to see and respond to each other’s work?
  • What kind of feedback do you want to provide?
  • Do you want everything to live in one place (e.g., your OpenLab course site), or use different features of the OpenLab for different purposes?

You can choose to receive assignments on the course profile, the course site, or both, and there are several options for each one.

Receiving Assignments on the Course Profile

  • You can collect work in Files. To make work more organized, you can set up folders. Files are visible to anyone with access to the course’s profile.
  • Students can also draft their work in Docs that can then be evaluated and commented on. Docs are visible to anyone with access to the course’s profile.
  • You can add links to the Course Profile sidebar using the Settings > Related Links List. These could be links to a Dropbox file request, Google Form, Office 365 Form, other file request applications.
  • Students can also categorize and post their coursework on their own ePortfolio Learning Blog. The Portfolio List Settings on your Course Profile makes it easy to find and view each student’s ePortfolio.

Receiving Assignments on the Course Site

  • You can write a post with instructions asking students to reply with comments. This is a good way to collect short pieces of text, including links to work hosted elsewhere (e.g. Dropbox, Google Docs, Office 365, field-specific software).
  • You can ask students to post their work directly to your OpenLab Course Site.
    • To make their work more easily findable on your site, you can create Categories for student posts (e.g., Student Posts > “Project 1,” “Project 2,” etc.) so you can look at everyone’s work for a given assignment together.
    • Students can also add media to their posts, add an image gallery, or embed content such as presentation videos, slideshows, etc.
    • Work submitted via posts will be visible to anyone who can access the course’s site unless the post is made private or password-protected.
  • You can write a post that includes a link to a Dropbox file request, or shared Google Drive, Office 365, or other shared folder for students to submit their work.
  • Using the Gravity Forms plugin and Dropbox Add-on, you can set up a form with a file upload for students to submit their work directly to a Dropbox folder.
  • Students can also post their work on their own ePortfolio. Using the Portfolio List widget on your Course Site makes it easier to find and view each student’s ePortfolio.

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