What does collaborating mean?
*Please note that collaborating is a feature for our Gold teams and schools. Click here to find out more!
Collaborating is a feature that allows you to do more than just create and share a copy of a formative or a folder with another teacher. As a Gold plan member, you can use collaborating to allow other teachers (within your organization) access to your original formatives or folders, giving them permission to assign the originals to their own students or even edit them with you.
Formatives that are collaborated upon will collect all student responses, across teachers and classes, which an admin at the organization could then access to view and analyze.
Formatives and folders shared with other teachers in this way will automatically be added to the collaborators' Activities tab on their account.
**Note: to remove a shared formative or folder from a collaborator's account, the collaboration access must be removed at the source, i.e. if the collaboration was inherited from a collaboration on a folder, it can only be removed at the folder level. In the same way, a collaboration inherited from co-teaching a class can only be removed by removing the co-teacher from the class. This action can only be taken by either the owner of the formative, an admin at the org, or other collaborators with editing permissions on the formative/folder.
Collaborator access levels
There are two levels of access you can grant to a collaborator:
Edit & Assign: this allows all collaborators to edit the original formative/folder - perfect for teachers who want to create formatives and manage folders together! Your collaborator will also be able to assign the formatives to their classes and share the formatives/folders with additional collaborators.
Assign Only: your collaborator will be able to assign the original formative to their classes, but won't be able to edit it or share it further with additional collaborators. When a collaborator is added to a folder with this permission level, they can not edit the folder, they can only assign the formatives nested within it.
Note: Admin permissions override collaborator permissions. This means that if you've added an admin as a collaborator to your formative or folder, even if you granted them "Assign only" permission, they will still have the ability to edit the formative via their Admin privileges.
What happens when a collaborator edits my formative/folder?
If you or your collaborator make changes to a shared formative/folder, this will be reflected immediately on all your collaborators' screens as well. If they have already assigned the formative to a class, then the changes may affect their data (for example, if you delete a question or add answer key options).
If you're not sure if collaborating is the right option, check out how to share a copy of a formative or how to publish it to the public library or your team/school's private library.
Add collaborators
There are two ways to give collaborating permissions on a formative or folder to others, one by adding collaborators directly to the formative/folder (this can be done either from the Activities tab or from within a specific formative), and the other by sending them a direct share link that will allow them to assign the original formative to their classes. (See below for instructions on both ways!)
If you have a large amount of collaborators to add, and you only need them to have "Assign only" permissions, we recommend using the direct link!
Add a collaborator directly to your formative (or folder) from the Activities tab:
Click on the box to the left of the formative (or folder) you'd like to add a collaborator to
Select "Share" from the menu at the bottom of the screen
Start typing the name(s) or email address(es) of your colleagues. For ease of use you will be presented with options to choose from based on the initial letters you've entered.
Choose the level of access (Edit & Assign, or Assign Only) you want to grant your collaborators
Click "Add" and the colleague(s) will be added to your formative!
Add a collaborator directly to your formative from within the formative:
Access the formative
Click on the triple dots in the top right, and select "Share"
Start typing the name(s) or email address(es) of your colleagues. For ease of use you will be presented with options to choose from based on the initial letters you've entered.
Choose the level of access (Edit & Assign, or Assign Only) you want to grant your collaborators
Click "Add" and the colleague(s) will be added to your formative!
Remove a collaborator from the formative/folder or change their level of access
Note: These functions are available only to the owner of the formative/folder, an admin in the org, or existing collaborators with "Edit & Assign" permission level.
Return to the same "Share" menu as described above
Change the level of access by choosing from the dropdown menu next to the collaborator's name, or
Remove the collaborator entirely by clicking on the triple dots menu and selecting "Remove Collaborator"
Add a collaborator by sharing a direct link
Any collaborator that has "Edit & Assign" level of access can share the direct link at the top of the "share" modal with other teachers within the organization.
Teachers on your team who receive the direct link will be automatically added to the formative as collaborators with an Assign Only permission (i.e. the ability to only assign the formative to their students).
If the collaborator added in this way is an admin at the same level of the organization or above - they will also be granted the permission to edit the formative.
Simply copy and save the link to your clipboard. You can then share that link with your colleagues.
Transfer Ownership of a formative (or folder) to another collaborator
The owner of a formative (or folder) or the Admins at Gold schools/districts have the ability to transfer the ownership from one teacher to another collaborator. This is a great tool when teachers leave the organization - whether temporarily or permanently - and another teacher needs to take on managing the assignments they created.
To transfer ownership on a formative or a folder:
Open the "Share" menu as described in the sections above
If the teacher you want to transfer the ownership to is not yet a collaborator on the formative proceed to add them first (following the instructions above)
Click the triple dots menu to the far right of the teacher's record
Select "Transfer Ownership" from the dropdown list
Proceed to confirm completing the action on the warning message that will appear below
NOTE: Once the ownership has been transferred, only an Admin or the new owner of the formative can reverse it.
FAQ & Troubleshooting Tips
🙋🏽 I tried to add a collaborator to a formative/folder, but it says 'User not found.'" / "User's license doesn't allow for collaboration."
You and your colleague must both have Gold licenses before they can be added as a collaborator on a formative. Please check with your team Admin or Org Manager that this person has been invited, and check with your colleague directly whether they have clicked the link in the invite email they received. You'll also get these messages if you misspelled your colleague's email address.
Once your colleague has been invited and accepted, you can re-add them as a collaborator to the formative!
🙋🏽♀️ If I add a collaborator to a formative/folder, where will that formative go?
If you're the original creator of the formative/folder, it will remain on your Activities page, but there will be a little "shared" icon next to it (3 circles).
The same formative/folder, with that share icon, will instantly appear on your colleague's dashboard when you add them as a collaborator.
🙋🏽 I want to transfer ownership to a collaborator but the triple dots menu is not there, what do I do?
In some cases, collaboration on a formative is inherited from a different source, for example, via a collaboration on a folder the formative is nested in, or via grabbing a link to a Common Assessment. If this is the case, indication of the inheritance source will appear in parenthesis next to the collaborator's access level. To transfer ownership to this type of collaborator, you should first add the collaborator again to the formative itself following the steps described in this article - the collaborator will now appear twice - one with the inheritance indication, and another without. You will see the triple dots menu next to the record without the inheritance indication and will be able to transfer the ownership from there.
