Instructor Step-by-Step Guide:
DropBox Best practices
Through the use of dropboxes, students can submit lessons and other electronic files to instructors and instructors can then provide feedback directly to students through the dropbox functionality.
In using dropboxes, below are recommendations to alleviate issues:
Make sure students know that they need to look at the User Check box on the main login page to myCourses. They should have all green checkmarks in the User Check. If they don't, they need to download the necessary browser plugins.
- Make sure students are using one the supported browsers. Students should be using Internet Explorer or Firefox on a Windows machine or Firefox on the Mac. All other browsers have some issues.
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Turn tracking on. If you have problems, tracking allows us to better figure out what went wrong with submissions.
If you want your students to simply attach a document, remove the message box. Oftentimes, students will place a message in the message box and forget the attachment. By eliminating the message box, they are required to attach a file for their submission.
If students are just submitting 1-2 paragraphs of information, it is usually easier to have them paste it in the message box rather than use an attachment. It will also be less time consuming in grading the assignment since the instructor can view it in the browser window and does not need to download the file.
Currently there is a "bug" in the system, where instructors cannot put a comment back to the student without putting in a score. The score does not go back into the gradebook unless you want it to and the score can even be "0" (any numeric value works). Please make your students aware of this if you are not using it for their actual score and just putting in 0 to work around the "bug".
- You can download all submissions at one time. Instructors often find this easier than opening them one by one.
