Tag Archives: G Suite for Education

Assignments now generally available for G Suite for Education customers

Quick launch summary 

We’re making Assignments generally available as a Core Service for G Suite for Education customers. It was previously available in beta. Assignments is an add-on for your school’s learning management system (LMS), which simplifies the process of creating and grading coursework with flexible, collaborative, and easy-to-use tools. 
  • You can use G Suite for Education tools to optimize your assignment workflows, including: 
  • Distributing personalized Google Drive templates and worksheets to students 
  • Enabling students to submit Google Drive files as assignments 
  • Analyzing student work for plagiarism and fostering authentic writing with originality reports 
  • Providing feedback and grades which sync to your LMS gradebook 
See the Google for Education blog for more information on how Assignments brings the G Suite experience to your LMS. 


Getting started 

  • Admins: Assignments works as a Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) tool integrated within your LMS. It must be installed or configured in your school's LMS before any instructor or user can start using it. Visit our Help Center to learn more about how to set up Assignments for your organization. 
  • Instructors and end users: No action needed until Assignments is enabled by an admin. Once enabled, use our Help Center to learn more about how Assignments works. 

Rollout pace 

Availability 

  • Available to G Suite for Education and G Suite Enterprise for Education customers 
  • Not available to G Suite Basic, G Suite Business, G Suite Enterprise, G Suite for Nonprofits, G Suite Essentials, and G Suite Enterprise Essentials customers 

Resources 

Block Google Meet participants from knocking again

Quick launch summary

We’re making two changes to “knocking” (requesting to join a meeting) in Google Meet to reduce disruptions in education meetings.

First, if a meeting moderator rejects a knock twice from the same participant, the participant will be blocked from knocking again. This means the moderator won’t see any additional knocks from that user for the duration of the existing meeting.


Second, if the moderator ejects a participant, that participant will be unable to:
  • Rejoin the existing meeting (even if they are in-domain or on the calendar invite).
  • Knock to request rejoining the existing meeting.
Previously, when disruptive members were ejected from a meeting, they were able to continue disrupting the meeting by either re-joining or continuously knocking.


Note, if the moderator mistakenly ejects a participant, they can still add that participant to the meeting by manually inviting them. They can use the add person button in the people panel.


Getting started

Admins: There is no admin control for this feature.

End users: This feature will be ON by default. Visit the Help Center to learn more about removing Google Meet participants.

Rollout pace

Availability

  • Available to G Suite for Education and G Suite Enterprise for Education customers
  • Not available to G Suite Essentials, G Suite Enterprise Essentials, G Suite Basic, G Suite Business, G Suite Enterprise and G Suite for Nonprofits customers

Resources

Anonymous users will be blocked from Google Meet for G Suite for Education meetings by default

What’s changing

To increase the privacy of education meetings in Google Meet, anonymous users (users not signed into a Google account) can no longer join meetings organized by anyone with a G Suite for Education or G Suite Enterprise for Education license. This prevents participants from sharing a link publicly to encourage anonymous users to request access.

Who’s impacted

Admins and end users

Why it’s important

Anonymous users can cause disruption to learning by making noise and sharing content, and become a distraction for the meeting organizer when they try to join meetings.

Getting started

Admins: There is no admin for this feature. G Suite for Education admins can request to have this feature disabled to allow anonymous participants to join Google Meet calls by contacting G Suite support to request an exception. This will allow meetings organized by users in their domain to allow anonymous users to join.

End users: This feature will be ON by default. Visit the Help Center to learn more about setting up Meet for distance learning.

Rollout pace

Availability

  • Available to G Suite for Education and G Suite Enterprise for Education customers

Resources

Originality reports and rubrics now generally available for Google Classroom users

What’s changing 

Last year, we announced betas for originality reports and rubrics, two new tools for Google Classroom. Beginning today, these features are generally available for G Suite for Education and G Suite Enterprise for Education Classroom users.

Who’s impacted 

End users

Why you’d use them 

Help students turn in their best work 
Originality reports check a student's work for matches across billions of web pages and books.  This can make it easier for instructors to evaluate the academic integrity of the student’s work and provide them constructive feedback.

Students can also use originality reports to check for missed citations or poor paraphrasing before they turn in a document. This gives them the opportunity to improve their work and learn from their mistakes before final submissions.

Enhance feedback to students with rubrics
A rubric is a scoring framework that makes it easier for educators to evaluate student assignments, set clear expectations, and provide actionable feedback.

With the new rubrics feature, educators can now:

  • Create a rubric as they create an assignment. 
  • Reuse rubrics from previous assignments rather than creating them from scratch.
  • Export and import Classroom rubrics to share with other instructors. 
  • Grade students work with a rubric from both the “student listing page” and Classroom’s grading view, where instructors can select rating levels as they review the assignment. 

Additionally, rubrics can be helpful for business users. For example, you can create a rubric to assess marketing plans or performance in key business areas.

Additional details 

Language availability for originality reports:
Note that originality reports are only available in English and for Google Docs at the moment. See below for details on expanded language options available in beta.

Number of originality reports available per assignment:
Classroom instructors can enable originality reports on three assignments per class for free. Instructors who use G Suite Enterprise for Education can turn on originality reports for unlimited assignments per class.

Regardless of what G Suite for Education edition their instructor uses, students can run originality reports on a document three times per assignment before submitting. When students submit their work, a new originality report is created for the instructor.

More options for originality reports available in beta:

  • International language options: Originality reports are launching in beta for the following languages: French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Swedish.

  • Student-to-student comparison: Originality reports will also compare student work against past student submissions within a school's domain. This feature is only available to G Suite Enterprise for Education customers.

You can learn more and sign up for these betas using this form.

Getting started 

End users: 
Originality reports: Once originality reports are available in your domain, instructors can turn them on per assignment by checking the originality reports checkbox within the assignment creation process. Visit the Help Center to learn more about using originality reports.



Rubrics: Visit the Help Center to learn more about creating a rubric in Classroom.

Rollout pace 


Availability 

  • Originality reports and rubrics:
    • Available to G Suite for Education and G Suite Enterprise for Education customers and Classroom users
    • Not available to G Suite Basic, G Suite Enterprise, G Suite Business, and G Suite for Nonprofits customers

  • Beta availability
    • International language options for originality reports: available to G Suite for Education and G Suite Enterprise for Education customers.
    • Student-to-student comparison: available to G Suite Enterprise for Education customers only.

Resources 


Roadmap 




Transformation reports from Google for Education are now generally available

Update (September 23, 2019): We’re working to resolve an issue that’s preventing some users from logging in. We’ll advise here once the issue is resolved.

Quick launch summary 

Earlier this year we pre-announced Google for Education transformation reports. As of today, September 23, 2019, transformation reports are available for G Suite for Education and G Suite Enterprise for Education Super Admins in K-12 districts and schools in the US, Canada, and Mexico—free of charge. Note that at launch, the reports are available in US-English only.

To learn more about Google for Education transformation reports, see here. For a list of frequently asked questions, see here.

G Suite for Education and G Suite Enterprise for Education Super Admins must login to here between September 23rd-October 9th to generate their Fall 2019 report. After logging in:

  • Click “Start Survey” to begin the Transformation Survey (15 mins) 
  • Use the “share survey link” to gather feedback from key stakeholders on how your organization is doing in 7 key areas. 
  • On October 14th, login to https://edutransformationreport.withgoogle.com/app to access and download your custom transformation report. 

When the Spring 2019 transformation report window opens, admins who have used the tool in the past or expressed interest in the tool will be notified via email.

Note: if you login to g.co/edutransformationreport between now and October 9th but don’t take or share the survey, you can still receive a report; it will simply lack a valuable section of data, recommended next steps, and resources.

Availability 

Rollout details 
G Suite editions 
  • G Suite editions: Available to K-12 G Suite for Education and G Suite Enterprise for Education in the US, Canada, and Mexico only 
  • Not available to G Suite Basic, G Suite Enterprise, G Suite Business, and G Suite for Nonprofits 
On/off by default? 


Stay up to date with G Suite launches

Use the collaborative tools of G Suite alongside your LMS with the Assignments Beta

What’s changing

We’re announcing Google Assignments, which will be initially available in beta. Assignments is a relaunch of Course Kit and includes new features that improve assignment and grading workflows for instructors, like originality reports and rubrics. Overall, it delivers an improved, expanded, and more user-end focused experience.

End users can now use Assignments as a standalone companion that does not require an admin to turn on. Or, it can be used as an LTI tool within an LMS, which requires admin action. See more details below.

Who’s impacted

Admins and end users

Why you’d use it

Assignments lets you quickly and securely create, analyze, and grade coursework, while empowering students to learn more effectively using the collaborative tools of G Suite for Education.

If you currently use Classroom, you already have access to the features and capabilities of Assignments, including our new originality reports. For all other users, Assignments gives you access to these features as a compliment to your school’s LMS.

How to get started

There are two ways to access Assignments: as a standalone companion to your LMS, with minimal set up required; or, as an LTI tool integrated with your LMS.
  • Admins:
    • G Suite for Education admins can express interest in the Assignments Beta here.
    • Assignments is available as an LTI tool which can be used within your LMS.
    • Assignments is an improved and expanded version of Course Kit, so if you’re already in the Course Kit Beta, you’ll automatically have access to Assignments.
  • End users:
    • End users can express interest in the Assignments Beta here, no additional setup is required. 
    • You can start using Assignments from your Google app menu or at assignments.google.com. Visit our Help Center for detailed instructions on getting started with Assignments. 

Additional details

Assignments is built to Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) standards, making it compatible with any LMS that supports LTI version 1.1 or higher. This allows for instructors to share links to student work directly from Assignments through their LMS and export grades to Google Sheets or as a CSV file for input into their LMS.

Helpful links

Availability

G Suite editions
  • Available to G Suite for Education and G Suite Enterprise for Education
  • Not available to G Suite Basic, G Suite Enterprise, G Suite Business, and G Suite for Nonprofits
Stay up to date with G Suite launches

Originality reports for Google Classroom and Google Assignments launching to beta

What’s changing

We're opening a beta for originality reports. The feature scans a student's work for matches across billions of web pages and books, which can make it easier for instructors to evaluate the academic integrity of work and provide constructive feedback to the student. Originality reports can be used within Google Classroom and Google Assignments.

Note that Google Assignments is an improved and expanded version of Course Kit. If you’re already part of the Course Kit beta, you’ll automatically have access to Assignments.

Who’s impacted

Admins and end users

Why you’d use it

We've heard from instructors that they frequently use Google Search to check if student work is authentic and that they spend a lot of time giving feedback about missed citations and improper paraphrasing. This  feature makes that process more efficient and effective by integrating the power of Search into our feedback and grading tools.

Additionally, this feature gives students real-time feedback about issues before they turn in a document, giving them the opportunity to improve their work and learn from their mistakes before final submissions.

How to get started

  • Admins: Admins can express interest in the originality reports beta for Classroom here. All Assignments beta users will automatically have originality reports. To express interest for the Assignments beta, see here.
  • End users: Once enabled in your domain, end users can turn originality reports on per assignment by checking the originality reports checkbox within the assignment creation process.


Additional details

Once the feature is generally available, instructors will be able to access originality reports at no charge for up to three assignments in each course they teach. Schools that would like unlimited access can upgrade their instructors to G Suite Enterprise for Education.  During the beta, all instructors can use originality reports as much as they would like, at no additional charge.

Regardless of what G Suite for Education edition their instructor is using, students will only be able to create reports up to three times per assignment when enabled by their instructor. This applies to the beta and when the feature becomes generally available.

If your domain has turned on the Assignments LTI tool, you can also use originality reports within Google Assignments in your LMS. Note that when new coursework is set up within Assignments, you’ll need to click the checkbox to add originality reports to the assignment.

While this feature is in beta, originality reports will only work for Google Docs and will only be available in English.

Helpful links

Availability

G Suite editions
  • Available to G Suite for Education and G Suite Enterprise for Education
  • Not available to G Suite Basic, G Suite Business, G Suite Enterprise, and G Suite for Nonprofits

On/off by default?
  • Once accepted into the beta, originality reports are available to all Classroom users and can be turned on at the assignment level. 
  • This feature is available to Assignments beta users automatically and turned on at the assignment level.

Stay up to date with G Suite launches

Coming Soon: Transformation reports from Google for Education

What’s changing 

This back-to-school season, we’re launching Google for Education transformation reports, available to all K-12 districts and schools in the US free of charge. Admins can sign up to be notified once the tool is available by filling out this form.

Who’s impacted 

Admins only

Why you’d use it 

The transformation report is a free tool designed to help quantify an organization’s Google for Education implementation across our products and programs. Semester-based reports track usage trends over time and make it easy to understand how your organization is using G Suite, Chromebooks, and progressing through Certification and Transformation programs.

Based on survey responses and usage information, you’ll receive tailored recommendations and resources from Google for Education to help you drive more impact across your organization.

Sample Transformation report.

How to get started 

  • Admins: Express interest in receiving your own transformation report and receive launch updates. 
    • Note: Transformation reports are only available to G Suite for Education and G Suite Enterprise for Education users in the US only. 
  • End users: No action required. 

Additional details 

The survey window will open at launch and admins will have several weeks to complete and share the transformation survey (less than 10 minutes) with others in their organization. Your custom transformation report will be generated when the survey window closes, displaying survey responses alongside product and program usage metrics. Note that a report can be generated with just an admin’s response, or with no responses. If there are no survey responses, the report will not be nearly as valuable.

Reports can be generated twice a year—at the beginning of the Fall and Spring semesters—and will identify areas of improvement across seven key areas of transformation which you can learn more about here.

Additionally, you’ll be able to see metrics on your active G Suite users’ behavior over the course of the past semester. Specifically, you’ll be able to see data around how users within your organization are using products like Google Classroom, Docs, Drive, Slides, Sites, and more for collaboration, communication, creativity, and critical thinking.

Helpful links 

Availability 

  • G Suite editions Available to G Suite for Education and G Suite Enterprise for Education in the US only 
  • Not available to G Suite Basic, G Suite Enterprise, G Suite Business, and G Suite for Nonprofits
Stay up to date with G Suite launches

Introducing Course Kit: new ways to collaborate with G Suite in your LMS, designed for Higher Ed

(Cross-posted from The Keyword)

Effective teaching and learning require seamless collaboration between instructors and students. The right technology and training can help facilitate this connection, which is why many universities, colleges, schools and other educational institutions provide their instructors and students with a Learning Management System (LMS). In addition to using an LMS, educators and students often also use G Suite's cloud-based productivity tools to create, collaborate and communicate in real time. Until now, there hasn’t been an easy way to integrate G Suite with many LMSs.

Enter Course Kit—a free toolkit that allows instructors to use Google Docs and Drive to collect assignments, give faster and richer feedback to students, and share course materials within the LMS they’re already using. Course Kit is built using the Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) standard so it's easy to set up and works with all LMSs that support LTI. Course Kit currently includes an assignment tool and a file embed tool, making it fast and secure to integrate G Suite's powerful collaboration capabilities into teaching and learning workflows. We piloted Course Kit over the last semester with higher ed institutions, and are now making it available more widely through a beta program.


Save time for thoughtful feedback with Course Kit's assignment tool

Creating and collecting assignments in an LMS with Course Kit's assignment tool is efficient and secure. When submitting their work, students don’t have to worry about the format of their files because any file that can be stored in Google Drive works with Course Kit. Once students turn in their completed work, Course Kit automatically manages permissions and students no longer have edit access to their submitted files while being graded. For instructors, being able to use Google’s cloud-based tools that their students use every day is critical.


Educators can use Course Kit's grading interface to easily toggle between students and their submitted files, all in one tab. They also have the ability to privately give feedback on assignment submissions with the rich collaboration features of Docs and Drive—such as in-line suggestions and margin comments. To save time for deeper, personalized feedback, Course Kit includes a new feature that lets instructors quickly insert commonly used margin comments using a customizable comment bank. “Educator comments are added to a bank, which can be easily reused over and over, or edited to make feedback more personal. Our professors found that very useful,” said Ben Hommerding, Instructional Technologist at St. Norbert College.


When educators are finished reviewing assignments, grades and feedback are synced to the LMS and files are returned to students. “This saves a lot of time managing grades manually,” said Hommerding. Course Kit also creates an archival copy of every returned assignment so professors have an easy-to-access record of submissions -- especially helpful if the assignment needs to be turned in several times. Students get notified when their assignment is returned and can view the instructor’s comments and feedback directly in their LMS.

Embed course materials in an LMS with Course Kit's file embed tool

Using Course Kit's file embed tool, LMS users can add course materials from Google Drive directly into LMS pages, making it easy to share materials seamlessly. Instructors can embed anything from assignment information and syllabi to lecture presentations and videos. This tool simplifies the process of sharing related materials because embedded files are right there in the LMS, organized in Drive and automatically shared, saving faculty from manually configuring sharing settings.


Join the beta

Now with the Google Docs and Drive integration within your LMS, it’s possible to streamline assignment workflows, give richer feedback, and collaborate with students. Course Kit meets industry standards for accessibility and is available in 44 languages. If your institution uses G Suite for Education, get started by requesting access to the beta. Once whitelisted, your IT administrator can install Course Kit in your LMS. Currently using Google Classroom? We are also working to add new and improved feedback functionality directly to Classroom, so stay tuned for more updates in the next few months.

It’s our goal to build tools that enable meaningful connections and lead to effective learning. As always, we’d love your feedback about Course Kit so we can continue to improve these tools, and build others that help improve teaching and learning.


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G Suite Enterprise for Education is Now Available

(Cross-posted from The Keyword)


Since launching G Suite for Education, we’ve heard a common request from colleges, universities and large school districts: the need for more advanced tools to meet their complex technology needs. In January, we announced G Suite Enterprise for Education, a new edition of G Suite for Education that offers additional enterprise-grade capabilities designed for large institutions and customized for education. Starting today, G Suite Enterprise for Education is generally available to educational institutions in the United States, and is coming to more countries soon.

Additionally, new tools—such as Data Loss Prevention (DLP), security key management and enforcement, and Gmail S/MIME—will start rolling out to all G Suite for Education users over the next few months. G Suite for Education, a suite of tools used by 80M teachers and students, has been and will remain free for schools and we’ll continue to add new features to that edition at no additional cost.


New security features added to free version of G Suite for Education



Admins can expect increased security and greater controls with new tools that are being made available over the next few months to the free version of G Suite for Education:

  1. Gmail and Drive Data Loss Prevention (DLP) lets admins prohibit users from sharing sensitive content with people outside their institutions. It checks for sensitive content like personal student information or preset keywords, and alerts admins so they can intervene.
  2. Hosted Gmail S/MIME offers schools an additional line of defense to protect sensitive emails. With this tool, institutions have the option to digitally sign and encrypt emails. In addition, it also adds verifiable account-level signatures authentication to better protect against email spoofing. It’s easy to manage for administrators and seamless for users.
  3. Security key management and enforcement offers an additional layer of security for user accounts by requiring a physical key. Admins can now require faculty, staff and students to use physical keys that use cryptography as a part of 2-step verification when signing into G Suite.
  4. Admins can control session length for users accessing Google services like Gmail and Drive, which means that users will be automatically logged out after a specified amount of time. If specific groups of users require certain session lengths, admins can apply different web session duration settings to different groups.


Enterprise-grade tools for educational institutions



For educational institutions with administrative needs similar to businesses, G Suite Enterprise for Education offers robust tools customized for education. Here’s what users can expect:

Advance your institution with advanced controls

The Security Center in G Suite Enterprise for Education gives organizations more visibility and control over security. To prevent institutions from potential threats, we’re arming IT admins with actionable insights to protect sensitive data against attacks. With security center tools, IT departments gain insights into how data may be exposed with external file sharing, can see phishing messages targeting users within their organization, and access metrics to demonstrate the organization’s security effectiveness.

With Advanced Mobile Device Management (MDM), universities and institutions have scaled control over devices in their domain. Using customizable MDM rules, admins can automate mobile device management tasks, like approving all Android devices that enroll for management at the start of a new school year. Once the rules are in place, pre-specified events trigger actions like sending notification emails to administrators, blocking or approving a device, or even wiping account data from devices if its lost by a student. And with Mobile Audit, admins can see a report of device activities, including device policy compliance.



Enhanced analytics and search capabilities

Cloud Search is coming to G Suite Enterprise for Education soon, and with it, institutions will benefit from a unified search experience across G Suite—powered by machine intelligence. This tool helps educators and students stay on top of schedules, documents and emails, and can even suggest files that need attention. By searching through everything from a lecture presentation to the school corporate directory, users can spend less time searching for information and more time focusing on teaching and learning.

Gmail logs in BigQuery allow institutions to run sophisticated custom queries, conduct deep analysis and build custom dashboards. Gmail logs contain valuable information that can help administrators diagnose issues. The integration with BigQuery makes it easier for administrators to analyze the logs and unlock insights to help they run their organizations.

Collaborate. Coordinate. Communicate.

Advanced capabilities in Hangouts Meet improve internal and external collaboration, allowing for meetings with up to 50 participants and recordings saved to Google Drive. With these communication tools, instructors can save lecture and lesson recordings straight to Drive and collaborate from anywhere.

Since announcing G Suite Enterprise for Education in January, we've opted to make the U.S. dial-in feature in Meet available to all business and education customers, and will be rolling it out in the coming months. This lets users join meetings via phone from anywhere, without worrying about poor Wi-Fi connections. With G Suite Enterprise for Education, Meet dial-in is available in dozens of countries, allowing educators to easily connect if their institution has a footprint around the globe.

Get G Suite Enterprise for Education for your institution

If you’re interested in purchasing individual licenses, G Suite Enterprise for Education is $4/user/month for faculty and staff, and $4/user/month for students. If you’re purchasing licenses for all faculty and staff in 2018, we’re offering a special introductory price of $2/user/month for faculty and staff, and free for eligible students. Renewals at the introductory price will be honored for 3 years. Learn more about pricing, renewals, and features for this edition on our Help Center.

For help choosing the edition that’s right for your institution, explore what’s included with G Suite Enterprise Education and fill out an interest form to be contacted by a partner.