Create a collaboration

1. Select Collaborations from the left hand course navigation menu (or Group navigation menu).
2. Click +Collaboration.
   
   If you’re not signed in, sign in to Google with your university account (sunet@stanford.edu).* Guests signing in with a non-Stanford Gmail or those who have a sponsored base SUNet (without a working email) cannot create a collaboration, but may join collaborations they are invited to.

3. Give your collaboration a Title and Description.
   Note: Instructors and course admins can see the title and description of student-created collaborations, but cannot open them unless they are specifically invited to the collaboration, or the collaboration was created from within a Canvas group through the People Tool.  
4. Choose a Google File type: Docs, Slides, Sheets, Forms, Drawings, Sites, Jamboard.
5. Invite collaborators by selecting their names. Instructors cannot access student-created collaborations without an invitation unless the collaboration is created within a group site. 
6. Click Create.
7. Verify your Google Drive Collaboration information by clicking Create in the Create Collaboration popup window.

Edit or delete a collaboration

To change the title or description, add or delete collaborators, or to delete the collaboration, see Create, edit, open & delete collaborations. 

• To remove collaborators permanently, edit the collaboration through the Canvas Collaboration tool (if collaborators are only removed from the Google Drive file itself, they can still see and re-join the collaboration via Collaborations).
• To delete a collaboration, click the trash can icon, then the "Yes, remove" button. The file will no longer be manageable or joinable from Collaborations but it will not be removed from the Google Drive of the person who started the collaboration, and any collaborators who had already joined it will retain editing rights.

Join a collaboration

1. Click Collaborations in the left navigation of your Canvas course.
2. Click the title of the collaboration you have been invited to. 

If you’re not signed in, sign in to Google with your university account (sunet@stanford.edu) or personal Google account. The email of the account you choose will be visible to your collaborators and you’ll need to be logged into the same account on subsequent visits. For these reasons, we recommend you choose sunet@stanford.edu, if you have one. If it’s the first time you’re opening the collaboration, click Join.

Why can't some students access course Collaborations?

Confirm the user was invited as a collaborator: If a user can’t see the name of a collaboration listed in Collaborations, the creator should click the Edit pencil icon of their collaboration to check if that person was invited. If not, they can select that person now and click Save. 

Collaborators should be logged into the account they initially joined the collaboration with. If you are logged into a different account, you may encounter an error or be prompted to request access. Don’t request access from this account, as that will take time and annoy the creator; instead log out of your Google account and log in to the account you initially joined with.

For additional help, contact canvashelp@stanford.edu.