Should I use a Shared Drive or My Drive to share files with students?

The strategy you will want to use will depend on:

• If this will be one file or several files and subfolders.
• If all students will interact with the same files together or if they are interacting in smaller groups on group copies of files.
• If you want different groups to be able to see each other’s content or not.
• And if groups can see each others’ content, if you want to explicitly prevent editing or not.
• If groups only work on one activity versus groups that work for several activities through the semester.
• If you want to pre-populate all the groups with the appropriate starter files or if the people will start their own files or if they will start from a template you want them to copy.

Overview of Shared Drives versus My Drive 

My Drive Folder

Pros: You can nest folders within each other with different permissions so you can make a "class" folder and nest group folders within (results in a cleaner look).

Cons: Whoever makes the file owns the file, meaning when that person leaves RIT, the file deletes. It may be more work to control permissions. You can set sharing permissions at the folder level and new files created in that folder should inherit the permissions. However, items can be moved into a folder with no sharing permissions and people who normally have access to the folder may not see that one file. 

Shared Drive

Pros: The entire group owns all files regardless of who makes it so files don't delete when people leave. All people added to the shared drive automatically get access to all files.

Cons: Each group would need to have its own shared drive so you will have a lot of shared drives in your list. Students will only see their own shared drives, so it won’t be messy for them.

For more information on the differences, review the Google Support Documentation.