Leverage your course Google Group
When you request a "Course Shell", both a D2L Brightspace shell and Google Group are created. Anyone you add to the shell using Self Service - including sections of students, TAs and co-Instructors - are added as members to both the D2L Brightspace shell and the Google Group.
Uses for Google Groups in a course:
- Simplify email communication (using a single email address for the group)
- Facilitate the sharing of resources (using a host of Google Workspace tools in Google Drive)
- Create collaborative activities with your students
Support
Digital Media Projects does not provide technical support for Google Workspace. For technical support, please contact:
- Email: help@torontomu.ca
- Faculty & Staff Support:
(416) 979 - 5000 ext. 556806
- Student Support:
(416) 979 - 5000 ext. 556840
Google Groups can be found in my.torontomu.ca, under "Apps".
Start by requesting your course shell, if you haven't already done so. Whether the students will be added right away will depend on the timing - and whether the course section appears in your list on MyServiceHub.
If the course section does appear in your list on MyServiceHub
When completing the shell request, you will be able to specify the course-section and any enrolled students will be added right away.
If the course section doesn't appear in your list on MyServiceHub yet
When completing the shell request, you will only be able to identify the course code for the purpose of properly naming the course shell. You won't be able to identify the student section(s) yet - and so the students won't be added.
You will have to use the Self Service tools to connect the student section to the shell once it appears in your MyServiceHub list.
If your course shell has already been requested, you should have received a confirmation email with the "shell code".
If the shell code is abc123_w22_01, the Google Group address is abc123_w22_01@torontomu.ca. Use this address to email your Google Group members and share resources in Google Drive.
You can also go to Google Groups directly and find your group.
Google Groups created as a part of a shell request will expire at the same time as the shell.
Course-based Google Groups are active for the terms the course is running. If you indicated that your course will span two terms, when requesting your shell, it will be active for both terms.
You can confirm the End Date for your shell by going to the Manage Shell Self Service tool in my.torontomu.ca.
We've heard from many instructors who would like to share content, but prevent it from being downloaded by the students.
This isn't something that can be set on an entire folder - you need to enable it on each item.
This will not prevent students from recording their screens, taking photos/screenshots or copying and pasting sections of text.
This setting does not disable downloading for those with edit access to the item.
Create or upload an item into your shared Google drive folder.
Select the item you would like to share. A toolbar will appear below the folder name. Select the Share button.
Within the sharing pop-up, look to the top-right and select the Settings button.
Some new options will appear. Uncheck the option Viewers and commenters can see the option to download, print and copy.
Select the back button (left arrow) to go back to the sharing settings and select Done.
Once you have created content and folders in Google Drive and set the sharing settings so that your students can access them, how do you provide them with the links?
We recommend posting the links to your class Google resources and activities to the Content tool in D2L Brightspace. This is an ideal place to collect all class resources so students can easily find them.
You may also choose to provide links via email or other tools in Brightspace, like Announcements... but we recommend also having the links available in the Content.
Copy the link from Google
You can select folders and items, and then select the Copy Link from the toolbar that appears. This toolbar appears below the folder name, and sometimes to the right of the item you are selecting. Alternatively, right click on the folder or item, and then select Share, and then Copy Link.
There is a slightly different process required for embedding multimedia files from Google, which we have outlined in our document on sharing audio and video from Google.
Once you have the link copied, you can proceed to the sharing steps!
"Create a Link" in the Brightspace Content tool
- Login to D2L Brightspace, enter your course shell, and go to the Contents tool.
- If you already have a module in which you would like to share the audio/video link, go into that module. If not, create a new module.
- Click the "Upload / Create" button, then "Create a link".
- Give the new link a title, then paste the address of your Google Drive file into the "URL" field.
- You may need to check the box "Open as External Resource" if your files are located in a Google Shared Drive or if you are linking to a folder. Otherwise, you may choose to leave this unchecked.
- Click the "Create" button.
As long as the Google Drive folder has been properly shared and the students are only logged in with their TMU Google account, the audio/video should play directly in D2L Brightspace.
Are your students emailing you to request access to a Google document that you know you have already shared with the class?
It may be that the student has another Google account that is conflicting with their Toronto Metropolitan University account, and is preventing them from accessing your shared resources.
Here is a workflow that should prevent this problem.
These instructions can also be found on the student guide to accessing content in D2L Brightspace - please feel free to share it with them.
Recommendation: Use a separate browser for your TMU account and personal accounts. We recommend using Google Chrome for all TMU related applications. Consider using Mozilla Firefox or Safari for personal accounts.
Otherwise, these steps will help to ensure you can access content that is shared with you from Google Drive.
- Go to google.com (external link) and select the user icon in the top-right corner. This pop-up will tell you which account you are currently logged into, and give you the option to logout or add your TMU account to this list.
- You can either select:
- Sign out of all accounts. This quick method is useful for a one-time access of materials, but adding your TMU account will ensure your access isn't impeded long-term. If your course relies heavily on materials shared from Google Drive, adding your TMU account may be the better option.
- Or you can Add another account, and then proceed to login using your TMU email address and password.
In this example, you can see the person is both logged into their personal and TMU account.
- Go to my.torontomu.ca and log out completely. You must restart the login process from the beginning.
- After logging out, log back in at my.torontomu.ca. Complete the remaining steps within 30 minutes.
- Select the Apps drawer and open Google Drive, just to ensure you have a new session in your TMU Google account.
- Proceed to the page or application from which you are trying to access shared Google content (D2L Brightspace, email, or another application used in your course).
Google Workspace general information
Google Workspace is the university's official email, calendar & file storage platform, which includes Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Meet, and more.