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What’s changing Last year, we announced betas for originality reports and rubrics, two new tools for Google Classroom. Beginning today, these features are generally available for G Suite for Education and G Suite Enterprise for Education Classroom users.

Who’s impacted End users

Why you’d use them Help students turn in their best work 
Originality reports check a student's work for matches across billions of web pages and books.  This can make it easier for instructors to evaluate the academic integrity of the student’s work and provide them constructive feedback.

Students can also use originality reports to check for missed citations or poor paraphrasing before they turn in a document. This gives them the opportunity to improve their work and learn from their mistakes before final submissions.

Enhance feedback to students with rubrics
A rubric is a scoring framework that makes it easier for educators to evaluate student assignments, set clear expectations, and provide actionable feedback.

With the new rubrics feature, educators can now:

  • Create a rubric as they create an assignment. 
  • Reuse rubrics from previous assignments rather than creating them from scratch.
  • Export and import Classroom rubrics to share with other instructors. 
  • Grade students work with a rubric from both the “student listing page” and Classroom’s grading view, where instructors can select rating levels as they review the assignment. 

Additionally, rubrics can be helpful for business users. For example, you can create a rubric to assess marketing plans or performance in key business areas.

Additional details Language availability for originality reports:
Note that originality reports are only available in English and for Google Docs at the moment. See below for details on expanded language options available in beta.

Number of originality reports available per assignment:
Classroom instructors can enable originality reports on three assignments per class for free. Instructors who use G Suite Enterprise for Education can turn on originality reports for unlimited assignments per class.

Regardless of what G Suite for Education edition their instructor uses, students can run originality reports on a document three times per assignment before submitting. When students submit their work, a new originality report is created for the instructor.

More options for originality reports available in beta:

  • International language options: Originality reports are launching in beta for the following languages: French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Swedish.

  • Student-to-student comparison: Originality reports will also compare student work against past student submissions within a school's domain. This feature is only available to G Suite Enterprise for Education customers.

You can learn more and sign up for these betas using this form.

Getting started End users: 
Originality reports: Once originality reports are available in your domain, instructors can turn them on per assignment by checking the originality reports checkbox within the assignment creation process. Visit the Help Center to learn more about using originality reports.



Rubrics: Visit the Help Center to learn more about creating a rubric in Classroom.

Rollout pace 

Availability 
  • Originality reports and rubrics:
    • Available to G Suite for Education and G Suite Enterprise for Education customers and Classroom users
    • Not available to G Suite Basic, G Suite Enterprise, G Suite Business, and G Suite for Nonprofits customers

  • Beta availability
    • International language options for originality reports: available to G Suite for Education and G Suite Enterprise for Education customers.
    • Student-to-student comparison: available to G Suite Enterprise for Education customers only.

Resources 

Roadmap 



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What’s changingLast year, we introduced a new version of Classroom that provides additional features, including a Classwork page to help teachers better organize assignments. Newly created classes automatically include this Classwork page, with the option for instructors to revert classes back to the version of Classroom without Classwork.

The previous version of Classroom (without the Classwork page) is deprecated and will be discontinued on September 4, 2019. This means that new classes will be created using the version of Classroom that includes the Classwork page—instructors will no longer have the option to revert to the version without Classwork. In addition, all classes still using the previous version will be automatically converted to the version of Classroom that includes the Classwork page on September 4.
Why it’s importantAny class materials that exist in the Class Settings page will not be carried over, however instructors can create the same experience in the new Classroom by adding the same materials to the Classwork page. Note that you’ll still be able to access these materials, excluding links to YouTube content, via Google Drive.


 How to get started
  • Admins: Instructors will be notified of this change via in-product notifications starting in August, but we recommend you also prepare them for the update.
  • End users: Instructors should add any materials that previously existed on the Class Settings page in the original version of Classroom to the Classwork page in the new version of Classroom.  
Additional detailsFor more information and resources on Google Classroom for your instructors, check out our Help Center and Teacher Center. Your instructors can also view this video on how to create resources in the Classwork page using topics.
Helpful links

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What’s changing You can now create rubrics in Classroom as part of a new beta. Classroom instructors and admins can request to be whitelisted for this beta by filling out this form.
Who’s impacted Admins and end users
Why you’d use it Rubrics are commonly used with complex assignments that require multiple steps and criteria. Now, educators can create and attach a rubric to an assignment as a guideline for students and to refer back to when understanding their grades.

For business users, rubrics can be used to assess strategies in marketing plans or to evaluate performance in key areas of the business.

With this beta, users can create rubrics that meet their specific needs, making it faster and easier to deliver rich feedback to key stakeholders.

How to get started 
  • Admins and Classroom instructors: Apply for the beta here. 
Additional details This beta is covered by Classroom’s terms of service and privacy policy. This means teachers and instructors can request to be individually whitelisted for this beta. Admins can request access for their domain or a specific group of users.
Helpful links Availability G Suite editions 
  • Available to all G Suite editions
On/off by default? 
  • This feature will be OFF by default. Once accepted into the beta, it can be enabled at the domain and group level.

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What’s changing Last year, we announced a beta for Gradebook in Classroom. Gradebook makes grading easier, allowing teachers to keep their assignments and grades in a single place in Classroom. This feature is now generally available.

Gradebook for Google ClassroomWho’s impacted End users

Why you’d use it Better grading in Classroom 
One of the top requests from educators is an improved grading workflow. Gradebook allows teachers to easily input and view grades across their classes and students. With the ability to view all assignments and grades in one place, teachers can stay organized and holistically follow the performance of an entire class over time. To learn more about our grading improvements for Classroom, see our post on the Keyword.

How to get started 
  • Admins: No action required. 
  • End users: To get started with Gradebook, log in to Classroom and click on the Grades tab at the top of the page. 
Helpful links Availability Rollout details 
G Suite editions 
  • Available to all G Suite editions 
On/off by default? 
  • This feature will be ON by default, as it's automatically available to all users.
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We’re offering two new beta programs for G Suite for Education customers to improve their quizzing and grading experience.

Locked mode in Quizzes in Google Forms 
This summer, we announced locked mode in Quizzes in Google Forms as a new way to keep students focused during assessments. Available only on managed Chromebooks running operating system 68 or higher, locked mode prevents students from navigating away from the Quiz in their Chrome browser until they submit their answers. Once enabled, teachers can enable locked mode with a simple checkbox, giving them full control over assessments.




Better grading in Classroom 
Earlier this year, we introduced new grading tools and a comment bank for richer, better feedback. Today, we’re continuing to strengthen the grading process in Classroom with a beta for a new Gradebook to better enable teachers to keep their assignments and grades in one place, and keep this important task more organized.



Express interest in the betas 
Beta programs for locked mode and Gradebook are now available to G Suite for Education customers. All teachers and G Suite for Education admins can express interest by completing this form. Check out the full post on the Google for Education blog and the Help Center for more details. 

Launch Details

Editions:
Available to G Suite for Education editions only

Action:
Admins and teachers can express interest by completing this form

More Information
Help Center
Google for Education blog post



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Google Classroom makes it easy for teachers to create classes, distribute assignments, give quizzes, and communicate with students. Today, we’re expanding the walls of Classroom and making the platform available as an additional service to G Suite Basic, Business, and Enterprise customers. Admins can decide whether to opt in or out of new services. Classroom is on by default, unless you’ve chosen to manually opt in to new services.

Just as Classroom helps teachers and students save time, improve organization, and enhance communication, it can also help academies, tutoring centers, and for-profit institutions that manage groups of learners in an instructor-led setting. Explore the possibilities of Classroom for your organization, today.


What to expect from Classroom 

Classroom is designed for schools and is not an enterprise learning management system, but it is now available as an additional service to G Suite Basic, Business, and Enterprise customers. It remains a core service for G Suite for Education, Enterprise for Education, and Nonprofits customers. Note that users in G Suite for Education, Enterprise for Education, and Nonprofits domains will not be able to join classes created by users in G Suite Basic, Business, and Enterprise domains.

Have an idea for Classroom? We encourage you to submit your feedback through the “Send Feedback” button in the application. For more information, check out the Help Center and Help Forum.

Launch Details
Release track:
Launching to both Rapid Release and Scheduled Release

Editions:
Available as an additional service to G Suite Basic, Business, and Enterprise editions; available as a core service to G Suite for Education, Enterprise for Education, and Nonprofits editions

Rollout pace:
Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility)

Impact: 
All end users

More Information 
Help Center: About Classroom
Help Forum: Classroom

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(Cross-posted on Google Apps Developer Blog)

Posted by Tom Holman, Product Manager, Google Sheets

There was a time when office work used to be all about pushing physical paper. Computing and productivity tools have made things better, but workers still find themselves doing the same tasks over and over across the different apps they use: copying and pasting from a CRM app to a slide presentation, or manually exporting data from a project management app just to turn around and import it back into a spreadsheet. It’s the digital equivalent of pushing paper.

To make it easier to get the job done across multiple apps, without all the copy and paste, we’re announcing three new APIs and a new feature to help workers get to the data they need, when and where they need it.

Build seamless integrations with the new Sheets and Slides APIs

Our new APIs let developers connect their apps—and the data within them—more deeply with Google Sheets and Google Slides.

The new Sheets API gives developers programmatic access to powerful features in the Sheets web and mobile interfaces, including charts and pivot tables. For example, developers can use Sheets as part of a rich workflow that pushes data from their app into Sheets and allows users to collaborate on that data before the updated data is pulled back into the original app, removing altogether the need to copy and paste.

Teams at Anaplan, Asana, Sage, Salesforce, and SAP Anywhere are already building interesting integrations with the new Sheets API. Check out this video to see an overview of what’s possible, as well as several example integrations.


The new Sheets API is available today. Find the developer documentation as well as a codelab to help you get started at developers.google.com/sheets.

Similar to the Sheets API, the new Slides API gives developers programmatic access to create and update presentations. For example, developers can use this API to push data and charts into Slides to create a polished report from source data in other application, ready to present.

Conga, ProsperWorks, SalesforceIQ, and Trello are all building integrations with Slides using the new API. Several examples of what’s possible are in this video.


The Slides API will be launching in the coming months, and these partner integrations will be available soon after. You can sign up for early access to the Slides API at developers.google.com/slides.

Keep your data in sync with the new Classroom API

For developers building tools and workflows for schools, the Classroom API has launched new coursework endpoints to help you build stronger integrations that keep your data in sync. Read the full announcement on the Google for Education blog, here.


Say goodbye to stale data with linked charts

Finally, to make sure we can help keep all this data flowing seamlessly from app to app, users can now also embed linked charts from Sheets into Docs or Slides. The result? Once the underlying data in a spreadsheet changes, whether that change comes from an action taken in another app via the API or a collaborator, an updated chart in the corresponding presentation or document is just one click away.



For more information, see how to add a chart to a document or to a presentation.

We can't wait to see what you build.

Note: all launches are applicable to all Google Apps editions unless otherwise noted

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Today, we’re launching a new Chrome extension for Classroom called Share to Classroom. This extension makes it easy for teachers to send all of their students to the same website during class. Once the extension is installed, a teacher can simply open a website and “push” it to his or her students, triggering that website to open on the students’ devices as well. (It also works the other way—students can “push” websites to their teachers.)

Google Apps admins can install the extension for their entire domains, making it simple for teachers and students to get started. Both teachers and students need to have the extension installed in order to push web pages to one another. Note that the Share to Classroom extension works on any laptop, including Chromebooks, Macs, and PCs.

The Share to Classroom extension is only available to Google Apps for Education and Google Apps for Nonprofits customers using Google Classroom.

Launch Details
Release track: 
Launching to both Rapid release and Scheduled release

Rollout pace:
Full rollout (1–3 days for feature visibility)

Impact:
All end users

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center
Google for Education Blog

Note: all launches are applicable to all Google Apps editions unless otherwise noted
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As teachers gear up for the new school year, we’re adding a number of new features in Google Classroom to help them save time, engage with students, and keep everyone organized. Most of these features are rolling out this week, with others coming soon.

Keep students engaged with question-driven discussions
Since Classroom launched last year, teachers have been using their class stream to host student debates, Q&A, and discussions. Starting today, they’ll be able to do this in a more collaborative way. They can post questions to their class and allow students to have discussions by responding to each other’s answers (or not, depending on the setting chosen). For example, teachers could post a video and ask students to answer a question about it, or post an article and ask them to write a paragraph in response. 
TeacherStudentQuestion-04.gif
Reuse posts
Teachers can now reuse assignments, announcements or questions from any one of their classes — or any class they co-teach, whether it’s from last year or last week. Once they choose what to copy, they’ll also be able to make changes before posting or assigning it.
ReusePost-05.gif
Calendar Integration
In the next month, Classroom will automatically create a calendar for each class in Google Calendar. All assignments with a due date will be automatically added to class calendars and kept up to date. Teachers will be able to view their calendar from within Classroom or on Google Calendar, where they can manually add class events like field trips or guest speakers. 
calendar-classroom-integration.png
And a few more improvements based on teacher feedback:

  • Bump a post: When teachers want to make sure an older item is easy for students to find, they can now move any post to the top of the stream. 
  • Due dates optional: For long-term projects or student-driven assignments, teachers will have the option to create assignments that don’t have due dates. 
  • Attach a Google Form to a post: Many teachers have been using Google Forms as an easy way to assign a test, quiz or survey to the class. Coming in the next few weeks, teachers and students will soon be able to attach Google Forms from Drive to posts and assignments, and get a link in Classroom to easily view the answers. 

Launch Details
Release track: 
Launching to both Rapid release and Scheduled release this week, with the exception of Calendar integration and attaching a Google Form, which are planned for the coming weeks

Rollout pace: 
Full rollout (1–3 days for feature visibility)

Impact: 
All end users (teachers/students)

Action: 
Change management suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center: Post a question
Help Center: Reuse a post
Help Center: Move posts

Note: all launches are applicable to all Google Apps editions unless otherwise noted

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We announced a developer preview of the Classroom API in June, and more than a thousand developers and schools have opted in to use it. Today, we’re ending the developer preview, so all developers can develop with the API. The end of the preview also means that all Google Apps for Education users can authorize third-party applications to access their Classroom data, unless their admin decides to restrict that access in the Admin console. Admins can also restrict API access at the organization-unit level.

In addition, the Classroom API is now supported in Apps Script, which lets anyone write custom scripts or publish add-ons for Google Docs, Sheets, and Forms. Check out the Quick Start to learn more. 

For more information on the Classroom API, check out our Help Center and developer documentation, or watch this video for a high-level overview of the API and share button.

Launch Details
Release track: 
Launching to both Rapid release and Scheduled release

Rollout pace:
Full rollout (1–3 days for feature visibility)

Impact:
All end users (Admins only for data access settings)

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI
Change management suggested/FYI

More Information
Google for Education Blog Post
Classroom API Developer Documentation
Help Center: Classroom API overview
Help Center: Set Classroom data access

Note: all launches are applicable to all Google Apps editions unless otherwise noted

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Over the next few days, students will begin receiving mobile notifications via the Classroom app for Android and iOS when new content is added to their classes. For instance, students will be alerted immediately when they receive new assignments or grades, notes from teachers, comments from fellow classmates, and more—allowing them to stay on top of their schoolwork even more easily.
  
Launch Details
Release track:
Launching to both Rapid release and Scheduled release

Rollout pace:
Full rollout (1-3 days for feature visibility)

Impact:
All end users

Action:
Change management suggested/FYI

More Information
Help Center

Note: all launches are applicable to all Google Apps editions unless otherwise noted

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Companies today don’t work in silos; businesses are often dependent upon partnerships with other businesses, vendors, and organizations—not to mention customers. As a Google Apps admin, you may currently protect your data by restricting employees from sharing Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Slides files outside of your domain. At times, however, such external sharing is necessary and appropriate (for example, with a trusted supplier or newly acquired company). In addition, educators and students often need to work across multiple domains—teaching and taking classes in domains other than their own. Today, as previously announced, we’re making that cross-domain work and sharing possible by launching Whitelisted Domains in Google Drive, the Google Docs editors, and Google Classroom.

You can now easily whitelist certain Google Apps domains and manage sharing options with respect to those domains. You can even turn Whitelisted Domains on or off for specific organizational units, but for any OUs turned “on,” the list of whitelisted domains must be the same.

Check out the Help Center for more information on making Whitelisted Domains work for your business. Please note that this feature is only available to Google Drive for Work and Google Apps for Education customers.

Launch Details
Release track:
Launching to both Rapid release and Scheduled release

Rollout pace: 
Full rollout (1-3 days for feature visibility)

Impact:
Admins only

Action:
Admin action suggested

More Information
Help Center
Google for Work blog post (March 31, 2015)
Google for Education blog post (March 31, 2015)

Note: all launches are applicable to all Google Apps editions unless otherwise noted

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In January, we launched a Classroom mobile app for iOS and Android, because we knew that students were increasingly relying on mobile devices to get homework done on the go. That app has now been downloaded more than 2.5 million times. This functionality isn’t just useful for students, however. We’ve heard from teachers that they also want to be able to keep track of their classes no matter where they are or what device they’re on. Today, we’re making that even easier with several new features. Teachers can now:

  • Create and edit assignments on the go, make copies of attachments, and attach new photos to assignments. 
  • Grade assignments from their phones or tablets, and add private comments for students.
  • Snap pictures to create assignments, so whiteboard photos and class notes can be posted to the stream for students who are absent and/or assigned to the class for a deeper dive.


Release track:
Rapid release and Scheduled release

More information:
Help Center: Get the classroom app
Google for Education blog post

Note: all launches are applicable to all Google Apps editions unless otherwise noted

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Google Classroom allows teachers to spend less time on paperwork and more time with their students. Starting today, multiple teachers can work and collaborate in a single Classroom class. With the exception of deleting the class altogether, additional teachers can perform all of the same functions as the primary teacher, including:

  • Creating assignments and announcements
  • Viewing and grading submissions
  • Participating in comments on the class’ “stream”
  • Inviting students to the class
  • Receiving email notifications related to the class
Screencast-of-Co-Teacher-2.gif
Teachers can also prep for their classes in advance, saving announcements and assignments as “drafts” and waiting to send them until they’re ready. Like in Gmail, once a new announcement or assignment is created, it will be automatically saved as a draft. Those drafts can then be accessed by multiple teachers, making it simple to collaborate on prep work.

Finally, in response to teacher feedback, we’ve made two additional changes that will make Classroom easier to use:
  • Autosaving grades - Grades will now be autosaved as they’re entered, meaning teachers can grade assignments over multiple sessions but still return those assignments to students all at one time.
  • Improved notifications - Teachers and students will now receive email notifications when private messages are left on assignments.

Release track:  
Rapid release and Scheduled release

More information:
Help Center: Invite teachers to a class
Help Center: Draft announcements
Help Center: Draft assignments
Google for Education blog post


Note: all launches are applicable to all Google Apps editions unless otherwise noted

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Today we announced several improvements to Google Classroom. On the web, teachers can now bring their own personal touches to Classroom by uploading their own images to use as themes. They can add their own custom images, or choose from our gallery of options, which has been updated with 18 new images and 30 pattern themes.

For the Android and iOS Classroom apps, we added the ability for students and teachers to view the class resource page, and a few other features for both Android and iOS. 

The Classroom app allows students to do their work anytime, anywhere and is designed for schools with iPads or Android tablets and students' personal devices. If you are a Google Apps for Education admin and your school is using managed Android tablets, iPads, or ChromeOS devices, please consider installing the Classroom app centrally, as students may not be able to install it themselves. To make sure students have a great experience using the Classroom app, be sure to install the Drive and Docs apps (Docs, Slides, and Sheets) to the devices at the same time. 

To learn more about our native mobile apps, please visit the Classroom Help Center.

Release track:
Rapid release and Scheduled release

For more information:
Help Center

Note: all launches are applicable to all Google Apps editions unless otherwise noted

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Today we’re launching a native Classroom mobile app for both Android and iOS to help teachers and students be more collaborative in the classroom and save even more paper and time:
classroom_android.png
New with the mobile app, students and teachers can:

  • Snap a photo: Right from the assignment page in the mobile app, students can snap a photo and attach it to their assignment.
  • Share from other apps: Students can also easily attach images, PDFs and web pages from other apps to their assignments. 
  • Offline caching: Class streams and assignment information are automatically cached every time you open the app with an Internet connection, so that you can see them when you don’t have a connection. 

We’re also launching two new desktop features to help teachers stay organized as they head into the second half of the year: 

  • Teacher Assignments Page: On Classroom for desktop, we’re launching a teacher assignments page, where teachers will be able to get quick access to any assignment, see how many students are done and mark assignments as reviewed.
  • Archive Classes: We also know that classes don’t go on forever —that’s why today we’re launching the ability to archive classes. Archiving a class will remove it from the home page and make it read-only — teachers and class members can still view valuable information in archived classes, but can’t make any changes or turn in assignments.

Release track:
Rapid release and Scheduled release

For more information:
Google for Work blog post
Classroom apps: Android | iOS
Help Center: Mobile app | Archive classes | Teacher assignment page


Note: all launches are applicable to all Google Apps editions unless otherwise noted

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