Merging Elementary and Middle School Accounts

Post date: Oct 15, 2012 10:56:55 PM

Q: During parent conferences today a parent had a question regarding Google docs. Her students went to Murphy Ranch, wrote and saved a lot of work. She wanted to make sure that her work wouldn't get deleted. She asked if their was a way to merge her Murphy Ranch Google Docs with their new Granada Google Docs, or just find a way to get and keep access to all her old work. Please Advise.

A: I wish we had an elegant solution for this, but the Google Docs platform only allows for transfer of ownership of items between users in the same domain. Since the middle schools have their own domain and elementary schools have their own, neither student users nor admin users can transfer ownership of documents/files from student elementary accounts to their middle school accounts. This actually is possible within the school domains.

However, here is one work around. The student should go to their elementary account, choose whatever files they want to preserve, and share access to these files to their middle school account. This can be pretty painless by checking off all the files, clicking on the share button, etc. (see screenshot below) For instance, JohnSmith@murphyranch.ewcsd.org should share their documents to JohnSmith@granada.ewcsd.org. Then the student should open each document and go to File > Make a copy... This part will be somewhat tedious because of having to open each document.

As of yet we don't have a set policy on how long we keep accounts available for use after a student has moved on. Some schools have "cleaned up their accounts" recently. But, overall, we haven't made a policy of doing this quickly. In other words. Fifth grade and eighth grade accounts could be wiped from the rolls at any time after the students move on, but in general are allowed to live on in dormancy for awhile.

After middle school, the student would need to establish an new way to maintain their digital portfolio. They might choose to repeat the process with a personal Google Docs account or at one connected to their high school.