Checking Revision History and Creating Drafts in Google Docs

With Google Docs you can easily track changes and revert to older files. This means that if you make a mistake, you can easily recover your work.

See Revision History

1. In order to view older files, go to File>See Revision History. Information should pop up on the right of the screen.
2. Click on older dates to see the state of the doc at that time.
3. If you would like to, you can click "revert to this doc" in order to abandon all the changes you had made to that point.

One of the downsides to using Docs in a school setting, is that the editing process becomes seamless, almost invisible. For students who need to track the progression of their work in a portfolio, this can introduce issues.

Making "Draft" Copies

In order to ensure the existence of drafts, teachers can have students make a copy of their files at certain phases.

1. Go to File > Make a copy
2. Click the checkbox next to "Also copy document collaborators". This way teachers will automatically be added as editors to subsequent drafts.
3. Click on the title to change the name of the document.
4. In the popup box, enter the new name of the document and click OK.

Make sure that you introduce a  consistent naming/file structure (numbers of drafts, etc.)