Introduction

The Google Assignments learning tool integration (LTI) allows Penn State students, faculty, and staff to share, and collaborate on Google files within Canvas. This page provides more information about the Google Assignments LTI and includes instructions to incorporate it into your Canvas course as well as how to access your Penn State Google Workspace for Education account. You will also find helpful information and resources to share with students.

On This Page:

Get to know the Google Assignments LTI
Create, Access, and Manage Google files
Create and Manage Google Assignments
Add Google files to your Canvas course

NOTES:

This LTI does not appear in your course navigation menu.
You can find more information about other LTIs in the Advanced Learning Path page: Find and Implement Integrations in Your Course (PSU resource)

Get to know the Google Assignments LTI

Learn more about the features of the Google Assignments learning tool in the following article:

Canvas: Overview of Google Assignments LTI (PSU resource)

Create, Access, and Manage Google files

You can create Google files and utilize them in your Canvas course by accessing your Google Drive. Students can also create, access, and manage their Google files by logging into PSU Google Workspace for Education.

Instructional use cases:

Create Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides to use in your course.
Create and share templates for Google Slides or Google Sheets for students to customize and use for assignments and presentations.
Create a Google Doc for students to synchronously edit and add material for an interactive experience with your content.
Create Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides for student collaboration during group projects.

Access your Google account:

Access Your Penn State Google Workspace for Education Account (PSU resource)

Learn more about managing your Google files through Google Drive:

Get started with Drive for Google Workspace (External resource)

Learn more about creating content:

Get started with Docs in Google Workspace (External resource)
Get started with Sheets for Google Workspace (External resource)
Get started with Slides in Google Workspace (External resource)

Create and Manage Google Assignments

File Upload Assignment in Canvas

Create a file upload assignment:

How do I create an online assignment as an instructor? (External resource)

Use SpeedGrader to grade the student's Google Drive submissions:

Use SpeedGrader with Drive Files in Canvas (External resource)

Second, you can create an external tool submission assignment. Google assignments are created in Canvas through the external tool submission option. You can attach Google files to use as templates, or have students create their own Google files for submission. Any Google files students submit to this assignment can be accessed through Canvas and will open in the appropriate Google application to be reviewed, graded, and returned. Grades will automatically be added to your Canvas Gradebook.

External Tool Submission Assignment

Create a Google assignment using the external tool submission option:

How to use Google Assignments within your LMS (PSU resource)

Grade Google assignments:

How to grade with Google Assignments (PSU resource)

Teach students how to submit their Google assignments:

Canvas: Google Assignments LTI Student Submissions (PSU resource)

NOTES:

Only Penn State Google Users can utilize this learning tool in Canvas.
You must agree to the terms of use the first time you login.
Students can only submit one file per submission including Google Docs, Sheets, or Slides.
If students make changes to the file in their Google account after they submit the assignment, they must re-submit the Assignment.

Add Google files to your Canvas course

You can add Google files to your Canvas course in one of two ways: link to the Google file or embed the file using the Google Assignments learning tool. Google files can be added into any area of a Canvas course using the Rich Content Editor, including pages, assignments, quizzes, discussions and announcements. Linked and embedded files do not contribute towards the Canvas file storage limit, and if changes are made to files in Google Drive, they will automatically update in the Canvas course.

Instructional use cases:

Link to a case study in Google Doc for students to review before a class discussion.
Link to a Google file as a template to customize for an assignment.
Embed a Google Slides presentation to a page instead of uploading the file to your course.
Embed a Google file in multiple courses or sections.

Embed content from Google to a page with the Rich Content Editor using the instructions in the following article under Embed Drive Files with the Rich Content Editor:

Use Assignments with Canvas (External resource)

Add a link from Google to a Module as an external tool:

How do I add an external tool as a module item? (External resource)

Add a link from Google to a Canvas course using the Rich Content Editor:

How do I embed a file from Google Drive into the Rich Content Editor as an instructor? (External resource)

NOTES:

Students will be able to view your Google Drive file.
PDF files stored in Google can be viewed in Canvas but are not accessible.