Canvas and Google Drive Assignments

[SherryZazi]

I have a teacher who cannot get the assignments in Google Drive to load. I have watched her go through the steps and she is doing this correctly. Using assignments, external tool and the correct Google Drive integration. However when students go to access it-they click on the button in Canvas, when it gets to Google it throws an error.

500: That's an error. Please try again later. That's all we know.

This happens every time to every students for two different teachers.

Any help/advice/solutions?

[Chris_Hofer]

Hi @SherryZazi ...

Can you please describe the purpose for using Google Drive for the assignment in question?  For example, what is the instructor asking the students to complete using Google Drive?  I'm not sure if you are using a Google Cloud Assignment?  Something else?  Are they supposed to annotate the assignment and submit it back to the instructor?  Any additional details from you would be helpful...thanks!

[SherryZazi]

Hi,

The instructors are using Google Assignment LT1 External Tool through assignments. It should be making a copy for them so that they can write on it and then submit it through Canvas. However, it will not do that. It produces the above error. Thank you for your response!

[Chris_Hofer · Accepted solution]

Hello @SherryZazi ...

This is helpful.  Thank you for providing that detail.  So it sounds like you are wanting to use the Google LTI (not LT1) ... which stands for Learning Tools Interoperability.  I am assuming that you used the directions found in this Guide:

How do I create a cloud assignment with a Google D... - Instructure Community (canvaslms.com)

As an alternative, have you tried using the annotations option within a Canvas assignment itself?  That way, you don't have to use a third-party external tool such as Google.  Check out this Guide:

How do I create an online assignment? - Instructure Community (canvaslms.com)

Specifically, under the heading "Select Online Entry Options", there is a check-box for "Student Annotation".  There are a couple other places I can point you to for more information on this:

• Assignments: Student Annotation Submissions (2021-... - Instructure Community (canvaslms.com) - video (just short of 1 minute in length)
• Canvas Release Notes (2021-05-15) - Instructure Community (canvaslms.com)

Hopefully this might be a good alternative for you and the instructors.  Keep us posted...thanks!

[SherryZazi]

Thank you so much for your response. The Google LTI works for every teacher here but two. We are just not sure why those two teachers would be getting the errors. I am able to use this tool and post assignments that open in Google by making a copy for each student. This is what everyone wants to do, unfortunately, these two teachers cannot do this. We do not want to annotate in Canvas. It is Google Slides assignments. Thank you for your help though!

[JasmineOguntuga]

Were you ever able to come up with a solution? I am running into this error.

[SherryZazi]

We had to submit a ticket to Canvas. I'm not sure what the solution ultimately was but it was fixed after the help desk ticket was set up by the instructional facilitator at our school.

[audra_agnelly]

Is the teacher authenticated to their work account? We run into numerous issues with students who have authenticated to a personal Gmail by using Canvas on Chrome when they or another user were logged into the browser with the personal email. I haven't run into this with teachers, but if they've authenticated and shared a doc that lives in their personal G Drive, there could be a disconnect in access somewhere. Have the teacher open Google Drive from the course nav and sign out then reauthenticate. When you reauthenticate you should see what email Canvas is trying to connect to, if its a personal address that should be changed to the work account.

I would also recommend having students open Google Drive from the course nav. If they can do that it's not an issue with their authentication, it's something with the assignment (perhaps the teacher's authentication, or the linked doc is bad)

If you have not already enabled it, Google released the LTI 1.3 several years ago and the legacy LTI (Cloud Assignments) is being sunset in June. Since you are having issue, it may be a good time to transition teachers to the 1.3. Authentication with the Google LTI/Cloud Assignments has been a headache for us over the years. I'm sure we'll uncover more issues with the LTI1.3 as more teachers transition, but I can't say I'm going to miss these authentication hassles from the legacy LTI.