Skip to main content

Draftback Replays a Google Document's Changes in Video Format!

Student plagiarism can be a problem.  The world we live in makes it easy for students to copy/paste,  using works not their own. Identifying plagiarism and addressing it is a big part of students learning to be good digital citizens. 

My last post outlined the new Originality Reports in Google Classroom, which check student submissions for plagiarism and incorrect or missing citations.    Occasionally, you will have a situation that needs a thorough investigation.  The Google Chrome extension Draftback is your superhero in this situation!  (Shout out to the Science Department, who discovered this gem!)

Can't I see a document's version history?

You may be aware that you can look at the revision history for any Google Doc or Slide.  Click File>Version History>See version history.  


You are provided a right sidebar.  You can click on any revision to review the document at that time.  Changes from the previous version are highlighted in green.  The person making changes is clearly identified.  You can also revert to an earlier version if you created a mess!




How can Draftback help?

Looking through the version history can be time-consuming and confusing if you are trying to determine if a student is turning in their own work.  Backdraft will start at the beginning of the document's creation and create a video of the document history.

Once you have added Draftback to your Chrome browser, you will note the number of revisions on a document located in the top right.

By clicking the icon above, Draftback will create a video of how the document was created. 




Draftback begins rendering the video of document creation:



The video will show you exactly how the document was crafted. Distinct copy/paste moments are immediately visible.



Draftback can also generate an easy to understand report.  Click on the top right-hand side of the video where it says document graphs and statistics.


A report, similar to the one below, will be generated:


This is also a great way to see which students participated the most in a group project!



Technical Considerations:

To use Draftback, you must have Edit rights to the document.  If you assign documents using Google Classroom and the 'Make a copy for each student' feature,  you ensure you have full privileges. 

What to do if you don't have Edit rights to the document:

Students can upload a Google Drive document to their assignment.  You may not have the proper privileges to use Draftback in this case.  You can ask the student to give you edit rights, and I believe you should be able to run Draftback and receive full edit history. 

If your Draftback report shows a big copy/paste episode during creation, students might tell you that they wrote in a separate document.  Ask them to share that document with you with edit privileges, and I believe you can run Draftback and see full edit history. 

Of course, it is your prerogative as the teacher to not accept any submission that doesn't contain a history of all the work that has been done.  

I hope Draftback helps you in the (hopefully) few instances where a more thorough investigation is needed!

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Google Classroom: Why Are Students Seeing Graded Returned Work as Assigned or Late?

Are students giving you feedback that work you returned to them after grading is now showing as 'late' or 'assigned'?   The addition of the Grading module to Google Classroom has impacted this process.  Read on to understand what is happening and how to fix it! What is happening? Let's follow through the typical workflow in Google Classroom where students are submitting work to you.  You create an assignment in Google Classroom and assign the appropriate points to the assignment .   You assign the work to students, which puts the work in status ' Assigned ' in the student view.   After updating the assignment, students turn in or submit work back to you by clicking the Turn In button.   The work status changes to ' Turned in.' After grading, you return work to students.  This is a necessary step to ensure the student owns the document.   The status now changes to ' Returned ' if you placed a grade
Post a Comment
Read more

Getting the Most Out of Grammarly

Grammarly Premium is now available to Staff! How do I get Grammarly Premium? You should have already received an email from Grammarly inviting you to the CCHS Grammarly Premium group.  Click on the link provided in the email, create your account, and add the Grammarly Chrome extension.  (Note:  You must use Google Chrome to access Grammarly in Gmail, Blogger, and Drive.) If you have never used Grammarly before, following this process should provide you premium account access. If you have used Grammarly before, follow the directions in the slides linked below: I have used the Free version of Grammarly   I have paid for Grammarly premium using my @concordcarlisle.org account. How do I use Grammarly Premium? Grammarly Spelling and Grammar checks: Once you log into the Grammarly Chrome extension using your @concordcarlisle.org account, Grammarly automatically provides necessary spelling and grammar checks for all Google products: Grammarly Editor: The
Post a Comment
Read more