Google Classroom for your organization

Use Google Classroom for your class and gradebook, and PrepareBuddy for the test, the marking and the detailed feedback. You publish a PrepareBuddy activity to your Google class. Students open it from Classroom, do the work in PrepareBuddy, and their mark appears in the Classroom gradebook when you release it.

Before you start

You need four things. If one is missing, the steps below will not work.

1. The right role in PrepareBuddy. You must be an Admin or Examiner in your organization. Your role is shown at the top of the organization dashboard, next to its name. If it says Member, ask your organization admin: they can use Change Role on your row in Members, or Invite Users to add a new teacher as an Examiner.
2. Google Classroom switched on for your PrepareBuddy site. When it is, you see Google Classroom under More Actions on the organization dashboard. If it is not there and your role is right, contact PrepareBuddy support.
3. Permission from your school's Google administrator, if your school manages its Google accounts (most schools do). On the Google Classroom page, open For your school's Google administrator: it shows the app IDs and steps to send them. The same note is at the end of this guide. Without it, Google may block you or your students with an "Access blocked" message.
4. A Google class that you teach, with at least one student in it. To try things out first, add a test student to the class: a Google account that has never been used to sign in to PrepareBuddy (not your own teacher account).

Quick start

1. Open the organization dashboard, then More Actions → Google Classroom.
2. Choose Connect Google Classroom, pick the Google account that teaches your class, tick every box Google shows, and continue.
3. Choose Refresh my classes.
4. Under 2. Publish an assessment, choose your Classroom class and the Assessment, then Publish to Classroom.
5. Reload the page after a minute or two: the assignment shows Live in Linked assignments and now appears in your Google class.
6. When students have done the work, mark it and release the results in PrepareBuddy. Each mark appears in the Classroom gradebook by itself.

The rest of this guide explains each step, what you should see, and what to do if something goes wrong.

Step by step

1. Open the Google Classroom page

Use any of these:

• Organization dashboard → More Actions → Google Classroom.
• (Admins) Organization dashboard → More Actions → API Keys & Integrations → Connect Google Classroom. This opens the same page; you still connect on that page.
• On a Testing Center sitting's page → Google Classroom.

If you work in more than one organization, check that the organization name at the top of the page is the one you mean.

2. Connect your Google account

1. Choose Connect Google Classroom.
2. Google asks which account to use. Pick the account that teaches your class.
3. Google lists what PrepareBuddy may do: see your classes and students, and manage the class's assignments and grades. Tick every box, then continue. If you leave a box unticked, PrepareBuddy cannot connect and asks you to try again.
4. You come back to the page. It now says Connected as and your Google address.
5. Choose Refresh my classes. You see "Your Classroom classes are ready to select."

During a pilot, Google may first show Google hasn't verified this app. If your school expects PrepareBuddy, choose Continue. If Google says Access blocked, your account is not allowed to use it yet: send your school's Google administrator the note at the end of this guide, or contact PrepareBuddy support.

3. Get the assessment ready

Choose what students will do:

• A writing or speaking activity: create a Task from the top menu, Institution → Create Activity, with a scoring rubric. To check the marks before students and Classroom see them, choose Teacher reviews first. Finish the rubric before you publish; each student's copy keeps the rubric as it was then.
• A test sitting: go to the organization dashboard → Institute Management → Testing Center, and choose Conduct a test. Pick the paper and the dates, tick Students come from Google Classroom, and leave Candidates empty: the students of your Google class become the candidates when you publish. Choose how results are released (Examiner review first or Release immediately), then Review & confirm → Create event. PrepareBuddy then opens the Google Classroom page with your sitting already chosen.

4. Publish to your class

1. Under 2. Publish an assessment, choose the Classroom class and the Assessment.
2. Set Classroom marks: the total the mark is shown out of in Classroom, for example 100.
3. For a Task you can set a Due date. A test sitting is due when its window closes.
4. Choose Publish to Classroom.

If the class has students who are new to PrepareBuddy, or students who cannot be added, PrepareBuddy first shows a summary:

• how many students will get the activity and how many new student accounts will be created;
• what that costs, if your plan charges per member;
• each student who cannot be added, and why.

Check it and choose Publish to Classroom again. One student's problem never stops the rest of the class.

What done looks like: reload the page after a minute or two. In Linked assignments the row shows Live and "sent" next to it. The assignment is now in your Google class, with a link to the PrepareBuddy activity.

Marks are converted to your Classroom total: 16 out of a 20-point rubric becomes 80 out of 100. The detailed rubric marks and feedback stay in PrepareBuddy.

5. Try it as a student

Open the assignment in Google Classroom with your test student account. A private (Incognito or Guest) browser window keeps it apart from your teacher login. Then follow the student guide: select the PrepareBuddy link, Continue with Google, tick every box, do the work and submit.

After a minute or two, the assignment shows Turned in in Classroom. If the activity waits for your review, it has no mark yet.

6. Mark and release the results

• Task: from the top menu, open Institution → Tasks Dashboard → Submissions, open the student's work, check the marks and feedback, and choose Publish.
• Test sitting with Examiner review first: an examiner checks and releases each result (see Testing Center results). Results nobody reviewed are released by themselves when the review deadline passes.
• Test sitting with Release immediately: nothing to do. Each mark goes to Classroom as soon as marking finishes.

The mark then appears in the Classroom gradebook, and the work is returned to the student. Students see the full feedback by opening the same activity in PrepareBuddy.

7. Students who join the class later

On the assignment's row in Linked assignments, choose Sync roster. New students get the same assignment. It shows the same summary as publishing if new accounts are needed.

If your class is linked to a course (next section), new students are also added to that course by themselves.

Keep a class in step with a course (admins)

Publishing gives one activity to the students in a class. If you want the whole class to be students of a PrepareBuddy course, with the course's access period, starting tests and reports, link the class to the course. Only organization Admins can do this, because new students become members of your organization.

1. Create the course first, if you do not have it: organization dashboard → Institute Management → Manage Courses → Create New Course. The school workspace has a different Create Course button for study plans; those cannot be linked to a class.
2. On the Google Classroom page, connect your own Google account and choose Refresh my classes. You must teach the class in Google Classroom, as its owner or a co-teacher.
3. Under 3. Keep a class in step with a course, choose the Classroom class and the PrepareBuddy course, then Preview import.
4. Check the summary: how many students will be added to the course, how many new accounts that creates (and what it costs on a per-member plan), who is already in the course, and who cannot be added and why. The class's other teachers are listed: tick any you want to invite as Examiners.
5. Choose Import and keep in sync. The class shows Importing, then In sync.

What happens to students:

• They are added to the course the same way as Add Student: the course's usual access period and starting tests. They get no welcome email. They open PrepareBuddy from a Classroom assignment, or with Login with Google on the PrepareBuddy sign-in page.
• Students already in the course are left as they are. Linking never lengthens or shortens anyone's access.
• A student whose access to the course has ended, or is suspended, is not renewed. They are listed under Not enrolled until you renew them in Student Management.

Afterwards:

• New students in the Google class are added to the course by themselves, about every hour. Sync now starts it at once; it finishes in the background within a few minutes.
• Students who leave the Google class are listed under Left the Google class when you open the class's Details. Nothing is ended automatically. Use Manage in Student Management to decide, then Remove from list.
• If the admin whose Google account reads the class leaves or disconnects, the class shows Needs attention. Another admin connects their own Google account and chooses Use my Google account for this class.
• Unlink this class stops the updates. Students stay in the course, and nothing changes in Google Classroom.

PrepareBuddy only reads your Google class. It never changes the class, its students or its teachers.

When a grade was changed in Classroom

If someone changes a mark by hand in Google Classroom (even a draft mark that was not returned yet), PrepareBuddy will not overwrite it. The Grade line shows Needs attention, with both marks, and you choose:

• Keep the PrepareBuddy grade: open it, tick the box, and choose Replace in Classroom.
• Keep the Classroom grade (mark): nothing changes in Google. The line then shows Classroom grade kept. You can still choose Send the PrepareBuddy grade instead later.

If the PrepareBuddy mark changes again later, for example after a re-mark, the new mark is sent as usual.

If something goes wrong

Each assignment keeps a list of everything PrepareBuddy sent to Google for it: the assignment itself, each student's turn-in, and each grade. Open it with Receipts on the assignment's row. Anything that needs you also appears under Needs attention on the page.

PrepareBuddy emails the teacher at most once a day when something new needs attention. Admins who link classes also hear when students leave a linked class.

What the words on the page mean

On the Receipts list, Assignment is the Classroom assignment, Adding students is students being added, Roster is a roster sync, Student submission is a student's turn-in, and Grade is a mark.

Good to know

• Several teachers: each teacher connects their own Google account and sees the assignments they published. Admins see everyone's.
• Several organizations: connecting in one organization does not connect another.
• Disconnect Google stops sending marks and removes PrepareBuddy's access to that Google account. Your Google assignments and the students' work are kept. Reconnect with the same Google account to carry on; anything that stopped meanwhile is tried again by itself.
• Unlink on an assignment stops sending its marks. The Google assignment and students' work stay. Resume on the row starts sending marks to the same Google assignment again.
• Costs: on a plan that charges per member, each new student account is a charged member. Each completed test sitting is charged as a conducted test.
• What stays in PrepareBuddy: answers, recordings, rubric marks and feedback. Classroom gets the total mark only.
• Progress and trends: Classroom shows the mark only. In PrepareBuddy, coordinators use Institute Management → Teachers (each teacher's students and results) and Levels and progression (each course compared, and each student's path between levels); see Teachers and levels. Your own systems can read the same results, with the teacher, level and Classroom class, through the Results API.
• What this does not do: it does not post comments in Classroom, copy rubric criteria or Google Drive files into Classroom, or change your Google class, its students or teachers.
• Students who already had a PrepareBuddy password should keep signing in with it. Signing in with Google can switch an account whose email was never confirmed to Google-only sign-in.

For your school's Google administrator

You can forward this section as it is.

PrepareBuddy connects to Google Classroom to post assignments to classes, mark students' work turned in and return grades. Teachers and students sign in with their school Google accounts.

1. Get PrepareBuddy's app IDs (OAuth client IDs). The teacher sees them on PrepareBuddy's Google Classroom page under For your school's Google administrator; PrepareBuddy support can also send them. There may be two: one for Google Classroom and one for the Login with Google button.
2. In the Google Admin console, go to Security → Access and data control → API controls → Manage Third-Party App Access, add each app ID, and give it access (for example Trusted) for the teachers and students who will use it. Google's guide: control which apps access Google Workspace data.
3. Make sure users may allow apps to see their Classroom data: Apps → Google Workspace → Classroom → Data access. Google's guide: set Classroom data access.
4. Students designated as under 18 cannot use an app until it is configured in step 2. Google's guide: third-party apps for students.

PrepareBuddy asks teachers for their classes, class students and their email addresses, and the class's assignments and grades. It asks students only for their own coursework, so it can mark their work turned in. It does not ask for Gmail, Calendar or Drive.