Google Docs Draftback to See Typing History

When students are using Google Docs you can use the Draftback Chrome extension to review their edits on the document like a movie. You can use this to view student progress or to detect plagiarism in Google Docs.

Draftback is a Chrome extension. It does NOT collect user data. However, it may be blocked by your Google Workspace Apps Admin. Please contact them to have it unblocked since oftentimes extensions are blocked by default by your school.

Using Draftback

After installing the Draftback Chrome extension you will see a button in the upper right of the document indicating how many revisions there are. Click on the revision to see a video of what looks like the student typing the document.

Detect Plagiarism in Google Docs

If you suspect a student of plagiarizing you can use Draftback to see if they pasted a large amount of text at once. Notice in the animation above that it shows typing character by character.

If you are a Google Classroom user you can also use the plagiarism tool. It only works on Google Docs, as does Draftback.