Students Saving Work for Staff to Access

[RichCowell]

I've been asked loads of times if there's an area/drive that the students can all save to, so the staff can access the work - I've always said no, because things can be deleted / copied and they end up chatting via text files etc., plus they're never monitored so end up getting to be huge and full of old files... so told them to get the students to email their work, or go round with a USB drive...

 

Thought about creating an area with a script running on the server to automatically delete files older than 10 mins (etc.), but that doesn't get round all the issues...

 

None of the them are great solutions really - so thought I'd (finally) ask how other schools handle this?

Edited July 22, 2014 by RichCowell

[danelliott87]

Give your staff access to the students home drives?

[Sagima]

We give staff read access to the students home directories. It is rarely used but some staff find it useful.

[3s-gtech]

We have a share, students can write to it but not read from it. Staff can read from it and write. That way, a student copies and pastes their work into the share, and the staff member can then check it. The student can't even read their own work once it's pasted, let alone anyone else's.

 

Only small technical issue with it is that students have forever tried to save work directly into it - this doesn't work because saving requires read/write permissions. Copy and pasting works fine.

 

It's all set up with NTFS permissions, I can tell you the settings if needed.

[sonofsanta]

There's an extra mapped drive here called Submission with the following weird permissions:

 

Once students have copied a file in, they can't open it again, so they need to work on it in their area then copy it over when done. No-one can look at anyone else's work, no-one can chat via text message (they do that via email if they want to anyway, and swiftly get told off for it), but teachers have all but full control and can do as they please. It's a mess, but so is any shared drive - you'll have systems to deal with that anyway.

 

Some departments also use the VLE and assignments to get files uploaded - works well, as they can leave comments, and it acts as a markbook for staff.

Edited July 22, 2014 by sonofsanta

[RichCowell]

We give staff read access to the students home directories. It is rarely used but some staff find it useful.

 

Thanks I've done that for the ICT staff who regularly need/use it, but it'd be a bit of a bit of a faff if a teacher's got to get one file from 30 students, so I was avoiding that...

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

We have a share, students can write to it but not read from it. Staff can read from it and write. That way, a student copies and pastes their work into the share, and the staff member can then check it. The student can't even read their own work once it's pasted, let alone anyone else's.

 

Only small technical issue with it is that students have forever tried to save work directly into it - this doesn't work because saving requires read/write permissions. Copy and pasting works fine.

 

It's all set up with NTFS permissions, I can tell you the settings if needed.

 

That sounds perfect! If you could, I'd be extremely grateful!

[RichCowell]

There's an extra mapped drive here called Submission with the following weird permissions:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]25837[/ATTACH]

 

Once students have copied a file in, they can't open it again, so they need to work on it in their area then copy it over when done. No-one can look at anyone else's work, no-one can chat via text message (they do that via email if they want to anyway, and swiftly get told off for it), but teachers have all but full control and can do as they please. It's a mess, but so is any shared drive - you'll have systems to deal with that anyway.

 

Some departments also use the VLE and assignments to get files uploaded - works well, as they can leave comments, and it acts as a markbook for staff.

 

Looks like what @3s-gtech was saying, and sounds just as perfect!! Thanks :-)

[Davit2005]

Yep staff read access to home folders, create a group to make it simpler in future.

 

If you run an ACL script on the home folders to just grant the staff group created read access, test it in a small test environment to make sure you are happy.

 

Done this at the old place, again only a few staff requested it.

[Sam_Brown]

Probably similar to above. We have a folder that students can create a sub folder in but can't enter any sub folders other students have created. Works pretty well.

[StevieM]

I set up class folders on the shared drive and set the permissions so that teachers can create new subfolders to which students can save files directly. Students can also read/modify/delete their own files but not those belonging to other students. Teachers have full access to all files in the class folders. It took me ages to figure it out, but it works fine now. I've got the permissions saved as a .doc, which I can send you if you like.

 

Teachers also have access to the students home drives.

[unixman_again]

Depending on the teacher, for some we give access to their student home directories, for others we setup a shared dumping ground, while others insist all student work is submitted using Moodle. We in IT like and encourage this latter option, 'cus we have nothing to do to administer it.

[RichCowell]

Depending on the teacher, for some we give access to their student home directories, for others we setup a shared dumping ground, while others insist all student work is submitted using Moodle. We in IT like and encourage this latter option, 'cus we have nothing to do to administer it.

 

Haha I know what you mean...

 

Sounds like the "Submissions" drive mentioned earlier will be pretty admin-free once it's up and running... I'll set up a script to automatically delete files older than X days to keep it tidy, and as they have to drag and drop existing work rather than save it there directly, if any files are needed again once they've been deleted, the pupil can just drag another copy back in...

[rdk]

We have a "drop-in-box" where each teacher on the "submissions" drive has a named folder. Kids can only copy and paste in (as above) but teachers can set up folders in their own drop-in-box for each of their classes or different assignments etc. Probably similar permissions to those outlined above.

[Serving]

I have a different view on this, I give them full access to the student shared drive and use treesize to view the folder once in awhile. Its 2014 kids do everything on mobiles they rarely use the share drive to mess around with. Kids delete things, move things etc... they are fully warned that its for short term sharing of projects, papers, etc. Its not on a backup cycle.

 

In there I have drop boxes for teachers that students have read/write too. Really the only problem I have is sometimes they place minecraft or prison architect to, but a simple script that runs every 30 mins deletes exe/dmg/app files on the folder and home dir folders fixes it.