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Notes
Install doctopus from any Google Spreadsheet, though preferably one that you can use as a one-time roster for tracking a particular project with a particular group of students.
Install from the Script Gallery...accessible from the "Tools" menu in a Google Spreadsheet.
Currently, Doctopus is in the "featured" section of the gallery!
If you are unable to locate Doctopus in the script gallery, copy the spreadsheet linked (File->Make copy) below and it will already be installed on your copy.
Some things have changed since the first release of Doctopus:
- It now has a "Individual - Differentiated" option which allows individual assignments to be distributed by student "level."
- It now allows whole class comment ability to be added to facilitate peer review.
- It lets you distribute folders full of resources in addition to Documents, Presentations, Spreadsheets, and Drawings.
- As of Doctopus 4.0 it now connects to a Chrome extension called "Goobric" which lets you associate a rubric with your Doctopus assignment and do rubric-based grading right in the top corner of your browser.
+Jay Atwood did a crystal clear video documenting the use of Goobric with Doctopus:
If you like Doctopus, you'll probably also like:
autoCrat - easy to use, flexible Docs merge utility that does personalized creation, sharing, and emailing of templated Docs using Google Spreadsheet data.
formMule - a multipurpose, flexible merged email creator that runs from Google Spreadsheets
First time users might also find this interview / blog post about Doctopus useful.
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Take hold of student projects in Google Docs with the Doctopus script
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Goobric Request
To follow on my Doctopus request, I also have one for Goobric (which I thought had it's own page, else I would have included it previously) -
Is it possible to make the Goobric pop-up a pop-out, or open in another window? If the student writing starts at the top of the document, and/or if I use my Chromebook, the Goobric pop-up covers up the text I am trying to grade with the rubric.
Again, many thanks for all your effort!
-Steve T.
Good suggestion
Good suggestion! Chrome extensions are pretty limited in the kinds of access they can have to the user's browser. Will need to look at whether a pop-out option.
Doctopus Request
Howdy, Andrew. Great work - I'm using Doctopus regularly. One request to make for future updates:
It would be great if it was possible to limit the folders Doctopus looks at/lists when picking spots for file distribution and storage - my folder list is literally hundreds long, and it's becoming unwieldy to have to go through them all every time, or come up with an even-more-alphabetically-first name for each folder. Maybe there can be a "Doctopus Files to Distribute" folder and a "Doctopus Files - Results" folder or somesuch.
Please, keep up the outstanding work!
All the Best,
Steve T.
Agreed
The way folders are handled in the dropdowns is pretty obnoxious. I used to limit to only subfolders of the folder the doctopus spreadsheet was in, but it created lots of user confusion. Wish there was a folder-picker UI in Apps Script;) Star this issue if you agree: https://code.google.com/p/google-apps-script-issues/issues/detail?id=2504&q=folder%20picker&colspec=Stars%20Opened%20ID%20Type%20Status%20Summary%20Component%20Owner
"Some email address were unable to be shared on these Docs"
Hello. When I try to copy and share assignments in step 4, I get the following message: "Some email address were unable to be shared on these Docs. Here they are: [LIST OF EMAIL ACCOUNT HOLDERS]". Does anyone how to fix this? Thank you.
Hmm...
Are you saying that the emails spitting out the error are in fact correct email addresses? Do you have anything special about the way your domain is set up vis a vis student accounts?
What sharing options do you have selected?
Fault after step 4.
Hello,
I have noticed that there is an error iafter you press the button to share with your students. The error is also present in the demo file you have provided. I am wondering if Google has changed something which has broken your script?
The error is shown below:
This should now be fixed...
rrichmond,
Several others had reported this same error to me and it should be fixed on the newest version. Can you look at your Script Editor (from Tools menu) and tell me which version you are running?
Best,
Andrew
Same Error
Hi
I am receiving the same error with my students.
Is there a solution?
Thanks
inserting Goobric results into a presentation
andrew,
great work. i met you at the summit at Kean U. I have been using Doctopus and Goobric anf the work GREAT! how do I get the Goobric results paste into a presentation (or other docs besided document which worked automatically). thx
c
Goobric can't paste into Presentations
Unfortunately, the Apps Script service doesn't yet allow for modification of Presentations, so Goobric is limited to pasting into Documents. It will, however, email the rubric for all other assignment types.
Send to students
Good Day,
I'm not accustomed to posting questions to a forum, but I need help. I have been experimenting on and off with Doctopus and Flubaroo for several months, and appreciate the work put into these scripts. I wish I were smart enough to help out and write some of my own, but I tend to be a slow processor unless I get my hands dirty. So, I want to do that now unless what I am looking for is already out there.
I want to take my google form that I am using for anecdotal records of student, and send each student a comment from that days observation. I have one form for each class, with various check list comments and a written comment section. But how do I send different student notes, from different days to them? I would be more than happy to share my process for better understanding, or maybe there is a better way that I am unaware of. Any help/suggestions would be great.
Thanks,
Rob
Use formMule
Rob,
Have a look at the formMule script, which is designed to allow any Google Form to trigger a custom email that uses the form values in the email body.
http://www.youpd.org/formmule
Cheers,
Andrew
Doctopus not available in Script Gallery
Today, April 4, one of my teachers reported that the Doctopus script is no longer available in the Script Gallery.
Back in the gallery
Just looked in the gallery and Doctopus is back in there.
Transfer Ownership to Students
Quick question: Why do I have the option on some sheets to transfer ownership and others I do not have that option. I have one sheet that is individual assignment and no goobric attached and am able to transfer ownership. However on the groups assignment with a goobric I do not have that option. Is there a way to always transfer ownership once the assignments receive their final grades?
File sharing and permission problem
Dear Andrew,
I try to share a document with six students(temp1,temp2, temp3, temp4, temp5 and temp6) with doctopus. I've set the "whole class access level" with "allow comment only" and the "individual student access level" with "allow edit". After finishing step 4, doctopus takes a long time to create file. Is it normal? Hence, it shows "Some email addresses were unabled to share on these Docs", but I'm sure I've typed in the correct email address.
Later, I have some of doc permission are not completed when I press the button "Share". I've tried so many times but the file permission is not what I expect. What 's the problem?
MATTHEW
"This doc has no associated rubric"
I'm getting the "This doc has no associated rubric" error, which others have reported in the past, when trying to open the Goobric using the extension. I followed all the steps provided. I'm wondering:
1. I associated the Goobric to a spreadsheet assignment shared through Doctopus. Is the fact that the shared student document is a spreadsheet, rather than a Google Doc then problem?
2. Does there have to be specific share settings for the Goobric spreadsheet?
3. Does it matter than I'm using a Google Account in my school's Apps for Ed sub-domain? Is that causing the No associated rubric error?
I'm just trying to throw some ideas out there because I really want this to work! I love what you're doing Stillman!
-Rob
Multiple Graders?
Hi!
Wonderful script.
I have an idea to use this. I am a science teacher and want to do a project with my English teacher. My idea is for the students to complete a writing assignment and get grades in both science and English. I was able to link the doctopus scripted spreadsheet, assignment, and rubric to two teacher accounts, but the rubric fill-in doesn't work. If I fill in the rubric and save the scores, when another teacher brings up the rubric, it is blank. Their scores will overide mine.
My plan was to have a few standards go for science and a few for English. I would fill in the science scores, the other teacher would fill in the English scores, and they would all save on the spreadsheet. Is this possible?
Thanks!
No Permission to Use Goobric
I am trying to learn how to use all the functions of Doctopus and Goobric so that I could then show our teachers how to use this awesome tool. I have been able to set everything up with Doctopus. After that, I have been able to successfully attach a rubric. When I open a student google doc and click on the Goobric web app, I always get one of two errors. The first tells me that I don't have permission to open that file. Sometimes I also get an error telling me the file I need has been removed.
What can I do to get Goobric working?
error
Dear andrew when test runnin doctorpus, i get the following error msg
Service invoked too many times in a short time: properties. Try Utilities.sleep(1000) between calls
any ideas
Ben
Goobric
Like everybody else, I am getting the error message from Goobric that there is NOT a rubric attached. I went through all the steps 3-4 times and it is still not working. I am doing all this work in Google Chrome do that is not the issue. Duh! I was actually relieved to see everyone posting about this same issue. At least I am not losing my mind. I hope there is a fix soon. I am excited to use this new tool.
Wendy
This should now be fixed...
For all users who were having the "No rubric associated with this Doc" issue, thanks for taking the time to report this! Thanks to your persistence I was able to track down the issue. As of 3/11/13 at around 10PM the issue should no longer show up on NEW documents created with Doctopus.
Unfortunately, there's no way to make the fix retroactive to documents produced prior to 3/11.
Goobric Error
Like some others, I am also getting the "This doc has no associated rubric" message even though I have installed the Goobric extension and attached my rubric to the assignment. TIA for any help!
Goobric - Not Working
First off! I just found Doctopus and I cannot thank you enough. It is perfect for my needs.
However, I connot get Goobric to work. I have tried multiple spreadheets, assignments, rubrics. Despite following the instructions exactly as Jay Atwoods video, whenever I click on an assignment with the goobric extensionI I get
"This doc has no associated rubric."
I hace granted permission to doctopus, goobric, and refreshed the spreadsheet.
Any help would be great , and thanks for the great work.
Goobric--Not working
I'm currently having the same problem! I love, love, love Doctopus and that is working wonderfully! I've followed the directions as the video says and I am getting the same error. I've tried multiple times and the error keeps showing up! Any help would absolutely be appreciated! Thank you!
Goobric not working as well
I too love Doctopus! So easy to use and very convenient.
I have the same problem as sidartha. I always get the message that there is not rubric associated to the document.
request for assistance
Hi there,
I just learned about Doctopus last week and decided to take the plunge with two of my classes' next writing assignment. I am very pleased to be using it for the first time.
I have only had a small issue getting the shared document to a few students. They all three happened to open a gmail account today in order to participate in the assignment. However, I had other students who also opened accounts today receive the shared doc with success. My account indicated that these three students had received the doc, but theirs did not. I tried deleting the share fields and re-copying, but to no avail.
Any pointers for me would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
Alyssa
Not sure what could be causing this...
MsMinchow,
It sounds, perhaps, like the accounts may have been set up so recently that perhaps the doc-sharing functionality didn't work as it normally does. I don't have a fix for this, as it sounds like a Google infrastructure issue.
If you try deleting the rows associated with those students and running the script again, it should re-generate and re-share docs for those students. If it's still an issue this long after the account was created, let me know...
Best,
Andrew
Whole group error and other question
Hello
When I try and share a document to the whole class, I am getting this error message: Error encountered: TypeError: Cannot read property "fileKey" from undefined.
Also, when I share a document individually, are all the documents supposed to be shared with all the students? THey can only edit one document, but they are getting all of the copies of the documents shared with them. Am I doing something wrong or is this the way it is supposed to work?
Thanks for the report
Thanks for reporting the whole class error. I will look into this. It should be resolved in Version 4 but please let me know if not.
As for the sharing issue with whole class: in step 1 you specify the whole class access level. You may have set the whole class to have viewing privileges on the student docs. This may not be what you want. I have that feature for teachers who want students to engage in peer review.
Bug?
First, thank you Andrew for this GREAT script.
I've used it for an ongoing assignment - the ability to email grade and comments from the spreadsheet is invaluable. Would it be possible to add more columns/fields for rubric-style feedback?
And I'll second the request to be able to access nested folders... limitations of the Google API maybe?
I used Doctopus this morning to create a second assignment, this time a group project, and groups named letters "A", "B", "C", etc. create numeric file names when using the default Group $group - I think using a single letter might reference columns, as my group D file was named Group group, where my Column D header was "Group".
Then again, I just noticed that my Column A, which was hidden, had student ID numbers. The other files looked like Group 41630639group, and that number seems to reference column A... which seems to ruin my theory. In any case, single letter group names seem to cause problems.
Thanks again for this great script - I'll definitely be exploring its uses in various contexts.
FOLDERS
First of all thanks so much for creating this script. It is going to make the lives of so many teachers across our board so much easier.
Secondly, is there any chance you can update your script to allow us to find subfolders?
Currently I can only find original folders. It would be MUCH easier if I could also access the subfolders.
If this is already possible ... help?!
Thanks so much
Katie
Tech Teacher
FOLDERS
First of all thanks so much for creating this script. It is going to make the lives of so many teachers across our board so much easier.
Secondly, is there any chance you can update your script to allow us to find subfolders?
Currently I can only find original folders. It would be MUCH easier if I could also access the subfolders.
If this is already possible ... help?!
Thanks so much
Katie
Tech Teacher
class roster
Is there either a template for the class roster or an example that someone could post, or direct me to?
Thanks.
Tom
re: class roster
Hi Tom,
In the case you haven't heard back yet, feel free to contact me off list (I think there's a contact link on the left of the profile page... just click on my name), and I'll be happy to create and share a sample roster that works with Doctopus with you (and anyone else, as well).
Can't Find Doctopus Today
Same here
Same here
Can't Find Doctopus Today
Doctopus back in the gallery...
When I republish the script with improvements, it sometimes takes Google 12-24 hours to re-approve it.
For future folks with the same issue, you can always copy the script here: http://goo.gl/LfLim
"Invalid Argument" Error
Greetings! I love your script -- I've been using it along with the Google Research Tool to guide my students through the process of research and writing a magazine article.
I've been loving doctupus in general, but have gotten a few errors on my most recent spreadsheet. When trying to send out emails, the doctupus script says "working" and eternally spools, but a window pops up that says "error encountered: invalid argument." Any ideas on how to solve this? As a workaround, I was trying to find a good mail merge script to use so I could email my students the feedback and grades I've already written, but haven't had much success.
Before attempting to send out an email with feedback, I created a new column "gradedemails" where I copied and pasted the emails only of the classes whose work I'd graded while leaving the column for students in the other periods blank. Could this have cause the problem? (After I got the error message, I tried deleting the column and sending to all student via ($email), but still got the error message.)
I also got an "invalid argument” message when I tried to unembargo grading. I ran the embargo for grading script successfully, but when I tried to unembargo, I got the "invalid argument" message, though this time it popped up as a notification at the top of the spreadsheet instead of in a separate window. I had to go through and manually give all my students editing privileges back. When I was doing this, I noticed that ~15/100 of my students' had never lost their editing privileges.
Again, thanks for the great product and would appreciate any advice on these errors.
In Blue..can you contact me at my G+ profile?
I'd love to get to the bottom of those errors. A new version has been published since you posted, but I'd nevertheless like to understand what caused your issues.
G+ me at https://plus.google.com/u/0/114670488345865665282/posts
Understanding New Features
I was looking for somthing that might explain how the "Excused designation" works. Must I create a colum other than student name and student email for this? How exactly does this work?
Also, Looking for a more detailed explanation of how to share a file to an individual student folder. Each of my students have a shared "Dropbox" folder where only they and I can see and edit their work. I'd like to put the newly created file I make with this script in that folder, but it looks complex from the limited explanation within the script Launch Instruction.
Finally, I'd love to see an option to share a document individually to all students, but one that it marked "View Only". For instance, a speech rubric that I markup, and that is shared to them to view only.
Love your work. You and Bjorn Behrendt (gClassFolders script) are emerging as Google Guru Super Hero Hacker Gods. You two should collaborate
New Features
rbelprez,
Thanks for the questions. You are correct that I am way behind on documentation and that this needs to be improved. I have been working to get more support so that I can have help with this. For the moment, I am by myself creating, training, supporting, debugging, etc. and building a case for more funding for these kinds of tools. For the time being, the great user-generated content that is cropping up on YouTube and elsewhere is filling this gap.
Here's a preliminary answer:
1) The "excused" designation would go in the same column as the "Flag" header that is put there by default if you are installing on a blank spreadsheet. You can, however, choose the column that holds this designation when you choose the sharing type in Step 1. Simply type the word "excused" in this column and that student should recieve no documents.
2) If you want to deliver Docs to individual folders for students, you will need to gather up the folder "key" for each of these folders. This is a hassle the first time you do it, but can save lots of time once you have it done. These can be found in the URL of the folder when browsing in Drive. E.g) the underlined portion of https://drive.google.com/a/myschool.org/#folders/0B2hlKlkQIMS1hMDg2OTM0My1hYjE3LTQzYWQtOGM2YS1lODJkZjA3M2Q4 In Chrome, you can double click on this portion of the URL and it will be pre-selected. Paste these folder keys into the "Student Folder Key" column. When the assignment gets distributed, it will show up in BOTH the student folder and your assignment folder. This makes it easier from both the student and the teacher perspective.
3) The "individual - view only" request is a fair one. I will try to incoporate into future releases.
4) Re: Bjorn Behrendt - ask and you shall recieve. Bjorn and I just released gClassFolders V2.0 which sports a full integration with Doctopus vis gClassHub - a new web app that creates an ecosystem for scripts that work from class rosters! See http://www.gclassfolders.com/
Script help needed
Script works great, thanks so much for it.
Question about workflow on it. We use the script to send pdf to students accounts, they open the pdf in drive on ipad, then open in Notability to edit - add answers, etc. When they go back to save it back to google drive, it doesn't save in the same spot, or as the shared document, so that the teacher cannot access the file with the changes. Is this a PDF issue? Trying to find a work around for this to work.
Any suggestions or help is appreciated.
Thanks
Hmmm....
Not sure about that. Would it be possible to use the iOS Drive App with students....and produce the document in Docs instead? Can't recall how good the commenting features are in Drive App.
I have a feeling this is related to the way the iPad App is handling the file. You don't want it making a copy and re-saving it to Drive...rather, you want an App that operates on the Doc itself. Afraid this is not likely a problem with Doctopus, but with iOS app you are using.
Also, I suppose you could use student folders to distribute and they could save their PDF copies in their folders.
Script help needed
Script works great, thanks so much for it.
Question about workflow on it. We use the script to send pdf to students accounts, they open the pdf in drive on ipad, then open in Notability to edit - add answers, etc. When they go back to save it back to google drive, it doesn't save in the same spot, or as the shared document, so that the teacher cannot access the file with the changes. Is this a PDF issue? Trying to find a work around for this to work.
Any suggestions or help is appreciated.
Thanks
Embargo for grading
I am using doctopus 2.1. When I finish grading and comments and attempt to embargo for grading, the error "type error: cannot call method "replace" of null". I don't know how to interpret the error or what I might doing to cause it. This is really a great script and I can't wait to introduce it to the staff. Thank you for producing a tool that teachers have been really needing.
Embargo issue...
Hmm... I've not seen this error before. Just finished work on the 3.0 release, soon to be in the gallery. Let's wait and see if the error crops up in that version. Sorry for the delayed response.
Errors
Hi,
I've been trying out Doctopus and I'm impressed! However, I'm experiencing problems when generating and sharing docs, and when sharing grades. I think they have to do with invalid e-mailaddresses. The entire process is killed and I receive an error.
Is there a way to let it skip entries that cause errors and finish going down the list regardless?
Also, is there a discussion forum or Google Group for Doctopus? I'd love to know what's being updated etc. Especially since I want to suggest this app to colleagues--I'm a student teacher doing a project--but I'd rather not until this bug is fixed.
Thanks!
T