Some Tips on Using Forms

Every form is associated with a spreadsheet with the same name. In fact, you can usually only access the form by first opening the spreadsheet.

Once the spreadsheet is open, use the "Form" menu to access the form. This menu is shown in the image below. In this example, the menu is called "Form (9)", where the 9 indicates that there have been 9 submissions so far.

From this menu you can access these options (plus others not discussed):

  • Edit form: This opens the form so that you can make changes to it (just like when you were creating it).

      • Warning: It is not advisable to do this once students have already started submitting responses, because

      • Students that have already submitted their answers won't see your changes.

      • If you delete or move questions, it can mix up the layout of the responses in the spreadsheet.

  • Send form:

      • This allows you to email the form to students. The form will appear directly in the email sent to the students specified. Note that a good alternative to this is to instead email a link to the form (see next bullet), or post the link on your class website.

  • Go to live form:

      • Opens up the form in a new window, as it would appear to your students. This is also useful if you need to:

        • Submit the answer key before grading.

        • Get the URL of the form to email out, or post to your class web site. To do this, click "Go to live form", and then copy the URL from the address bar of your web browser (see image below).

  • Accepting responses:

      • If you have a deadline for the assignment, you can uncheck this option after the deadline has passed. Once unchecked, students will no longer be able to submit responses.