Many of our students and faculty have been using and sharing Google services (Drive, File, Docs, etc.) for course-related materials and assignments. Unfortunately, there's a "glitch" in this that we have to deal with. Depending upon which sort of GWU mail account a person has, they will belong to one of two different Google "communities" within the university, and materials are not seamlessly exchanged between those two communities. The mail, and google services, reside on two different servers.
Please note that the following information covers two categories of ETL students:
1) Those who have no other standing within GWU, and,
2) Those students who are also employed by GWU in some capacity.
1) Students who have no other relationship with GWU are on a server that has the extension, "@gwmail.gwu.edu".
2) Students who are also GWU employees have two ways to log into GW mail (and Google Services) accounts. They are on"@gwmail.gwu.edu" as students, but are also on "@email.gwu.edu" as GWU employees. More about this in a moment.
Students who have no other standing within GWU
If you post materials to a Google service on your GWU account, faculty members will not be able to see them because they are in a different community. Conversely, faculty could post materials to, say, their google drive and students who are not also GW employees will not be able to see them.
The best way for students to give faculty access to your Google services material is to add them to the list ("invite them") by adding that faculty member's address -- being sure to use the "@email.gwu.edu" extension.
Students who are also GWU employees
You have two ways to log into GW mail (and to Google Services) accounts. You are on"@gwmail.gwu.edu" as students, but you are also on "@email.gwu.edu" as GWU employees. This creates some complexity.
If a faculty member shares Google services materials with their students, they have been encouraged to use the "@gwmail.gwu.edu" extension for all students. That means that you will have to log into that particular account in order to be able to view the materials--but it can even be a little bit trickier than that.
In some cases, an ETL student who also is a GWU employee will have their "single sign-on" set to default to their "@email.gwu.edu" (employee) account, so it's difficult for them to sign in to their "@gwmail.gwu.edu" account. If you get a message that the system can't sign you into that student account, here's a work-around. Open an "incognito window" in your browser, then try to sign into your account in it. That will allow you to bypass the single sign-in feature of GW accounts.
I'm sorry that this has to be complicated, but that's how things are at the moment. As technology leaders, we sometimes have to learn how to be flexible and adapt to unusual situations. Hopefully, the request that I have submitted to the university that they bridge the two Google "organizations" will provide some changes in the future.
