Frequently Asked Questions

With a custom writing space link you cannot provide assignment information or custom instructions within the writing space. If you need assignment details or directions inside the writing space, create an assignment instead.

No. You do not have to create a custom writing space to use Process Feedback in your class. Students can simply go to https://write.processfeedback.org and complete their writing there.

That said, when students see your institution's color theme and your course name in the sidebar, the tool stops feeling like 'another random website' and starts feeling like part of your course environment.

A coding process report shows typing sessions, text added and deleted, and a watch-playback that replays the whole process. It also includes the code execution history with successful and failed runs, so you can see effort and persistence, and it flags paste events and large blocks of pasted code.

See a sample coding report or read our teacher guide for a coding class.

Process Feedback offers a teacher dashboard where you can load hundreds of writing process reports at once. This allows you to explore and compare students' processes together.

Instead of reviewing all reports yourself, you can also have students themselves complete short reflection assignments to review their own writing process reports based on reflection prompts and share insights with you or their peers.

We are committed to keeping Process Feedback free for teachers and students and do not accept financial donations from teachers and students. You can support us: 1) by providing feedback to help us improve the application so new teachers and students find it intuitive to use, or 2) by introducing Process Feedback to other teachers, schools, and organizations or suggesting ideas to grow it in ways that can help more teachers and students.

No. Process Feedback works entirely without an LMS. You can create a writing space or an assignment and share a single link with your class. See our teaching without an LMS page for how this works in practice.

It is an optional feature on assignments. You define the rubric or criteria, and students can click the 'Rubric-based AI Feedback' button as they work to get feedback aligned with your criteria. You decide whether to enable it for each assignment. It is off unless you turn it on.

After submission, you can see who used it and what feedback they received. Because the feedback is tied to a rubric you wrote, students learn to weigh it against clear criteria rather than accepting it at face value.

Process Feedback offers a few ways to capture the coding process. Our online compiler requires no installation and works well for CS1 and in-class work. Our VS Code extension fits classes where students already work in a professional editor. You can also create a coding space that carries your course name and theme.

See coding tool options for a side-by-side comparison.

Transparency is a key idea at Process Feedback. There are no special metrics that are available only to teachers for observing students' behavior. Students can see what teachers can see.

No. These are two separate things. Rubric-based AI feedback is a coaching feature that helps students improve their work against criteria you define. It does not judge whether a student used AI.

Process Feedback does not automatically detect AI usage anywhere in the product. What it does is show you the underlying process data so you can have an informed conversation. See our guide on identifying AI-assisted writing patterns.

When you create an assignment, you get a link to a teacher dashboard where every submission and its writing process report appear as they come in. See the guide for creating assignments.

Note that this is different from the large-class teacher dashboard, which is a separate tool for loading many writing process ZIP files at once — useful when students are working in Google Docs or an LMS rather than through an assignment link.

If a student clicks the assignment link again on the same device, they can resume their work where they left off. If they open the assignment link on a different device, a new session will start.

To continue work on a different device, students should copy the document edit link from their original session and open that link directly on the new device, rather than clicking the assignment link again.

Process Feedback does not automatically save your document online. To continue your work on another device:

1. Use the Save Online option in the sidebar.
2. After it is saved, either choose Email to Myself to receive the document edit link, or copy the document edit link directly (not the report link).
3. Open that edit link on your other device to continue working.

Yes. A writing process report shows all copy-paste events larger than 25 characters (by default). In the report, you can see what was pasted and when it was pasted. A writing process report has a dedicated section called Paste Events. Check out our sample writing process report.

Process Feedback works regardless of whether or not students are allowed to use generative AI tools. While it doesn't automatically detect AI usage, the data it provides can help you see how and when AI might have been used. Please refer to our guide on identifying AI-assisted writing patterns.

Process Feedback is designed to work automatically with most languages, including languages like French and Spanish. If a language uses special characters as sentence terminators or word separators, you can specify them in the Settings so the writing process report is meaningful.

Process Feedback for Microsoft Word, an add-in for both Word Online and the Word desktop app, is coming on December 31, 2026. See the Microsoft Word page for details. Until then, students can write in Google Docs or our online writing space.

It can be, but you have options. You can have students do much of the reviewing themselves by assigning short reflection assignments. If you're looking for examples, check out our Reflection Prompts to guide their self-review. You can also have students submit their writing process data ZIP files so you can load them all up in the teacher dashboard and explore them at once.

Whether or not students feel anxious often depends on how you introduce Process Feedback, as well as your teaching context and grade level.

Ideally, you'll encourage students to review their own work and complete reflection assignments so they stay in control of their learning. It's also important to let them know in advance that you'll be asking them to share their writing process. For more details, please see our Teacher Guides for an example announcement you can share with your class.

Process Feedback does not directly detect plagiarism. However, it can help teachers investigate suspicious cases by providing detailed information about a student's work. You can refer to our guide on identifying AI-assisted writing patterns. Our main focus is on showing the underlying data rather than assessing it.

We are aware that there are already many tools dedicated to plagiarism detection. We believe, however, that prevention is more important than detection. Detecting plagiarism often leads to punitive measures and difficult conversations.

By contrast, Process Feedback can discourage plagiarism at the outset, especially if students are asked to reflect on their process and see how their work evolves over time.

Copy-pasting text or code itself may or may not be a concern depending on the context and an instructor's requirements. Sometimes a student may copy-paste their own text from elsewhere, so students should not be penalized simply for copy-pasting.

However, students can be penalized for not following directions. If the requirement in your assignment is to use the Process Feedback editor throughout their writing or coding process and not copy-paste at all, you have the rubric in place to grade accordingly.

Yes, and there are a few ways to do it. For a deeper integration in Canvas, Moodle, Blackboard, D2L, or Schoology, we support LTI. In Canvas, students can also install our browser extension, which works in assignment and discussion board editors. We also have pages with platform-specific guidance for Canvas, Blackboard, D2L, Moodle, and Schoology.

Regardless of which LMS you use, students can always write in Google Docs or in Process Feedback's writing space, download their writing process report as a PDF, and upload it to your LMS. A process report includes the student's final text along with charts and summaries that show their writing process. Students can also share a link to their process report.

For detailed instructions on how to integrate Process Feedback into your course, please read our Teacher Guides.

Process Feedback has a live chat feature. Sometimes our support team may not be available right away. You are welcome to email us anytime.

Process Feedback illuminates the otherwise hidden stages of a student's work, enabling teachers to see the steps taken. By tracking drafts, edits, and patterns of learning, it helps teachers offer more personalized, timely, and constructive guidance to their students. In doing so, it fosters a supportive classroom environment that celebrates effort, encourages reflection, and develops deeper, lifelong learning skills. Process Feedback aims to help teachers become great.

How you introduce the extension to your students can make a big difference. Process Feedback isn't just an academic integrity tool; it's designed to help students reflect on and think critically about their writing process. For ideas and best practices, check out our Teacher Guides.

Yes. The report displays the percentage contribution of each collaborator based on the number of changes made. Most users find it more helpful to turn on 'More Options' and view the graph version of the information, which shows collaboration timings as well.

Absolutely. Google stores the edit history for all Docs by default. Our extension retrieves, cleans, and processes this data to create an interactive report. That means it works even on documents written years ago, even 12 years back.

While the extension has been successfully used by thousands of teachers and students, it hasn't been thoroughly tested on extremely large documents (for example, those with 100,000+ changes or characters). That said, typical student writing is well within safe limits. Note that text styling in the generated report may not be perfectly accurate yet; we're actively working to improve this. If you run into any issues, feel free to reach out to us.

Yes. Students can download their writing process report as a PDF or save their report online to generate a report link and submit it just like any other assignment. Please read more in the student submission guide.

You may have multiple accounts in your Chrome or Edge profile. Reload the page and make sure you're using the primary account you want to run the extension with.

By default, the extension does not automatically collect any data from students. Data is only transmitted when a student explicitly chooses to use the 'Share this Report' feature. For institutions that require a formal organizational guarantee covering all channels — including support interactions — we offer a Data Privacy Agreement (DPA) through our institutional tier. You are welcome to review our privacy policy, and we are happy to work with your institution.

Yes. The Process Feedback for Google Docs extension is designed to work with Google Classroom.

No. Students can use Process Feedback's extensions or its editor without creating accounts.

Yes. Many teachers start with a single low-stakes assignment.

Yes. Transparency is intentional and central to Process Feedback. Students can see all of the same process data that teachers see.

Yes. Process Feedback can be used for assignments or exams. However, it is critical to inform students in advance that you will be assessing their process, not just the final outcome. Please see our Teacher Guides for recommended practices.

No. Many teachers use the process report for reflection or discussion rather than grading. In some cases, it can support conversations about revision expectations or writing strategies, but how (or whether) it is used for assessment is always the teacher's choice.

Yes. Students can download a ZIP file containing their source code from the sidebar.

Process Feedback supports LTI 1.3 with LTI Advantage (Deep Linking, Assignment and Grade Services, and Names and Role Provisioning). It works with Canvas, Blackboard, Moodle, D2L Brightspace, Schoology, and other LMS platforms that support LTI 1.3. LTI 1.1 is not supported. All platforms follow the same flow shown in the Canvas walkthrough, which has a short video and screenshots.

No. The institutional tool has no AI features. Student work is never sent to an AI or machine learning system, and it is never used to train a model.

No. Process Feedback shows the writing process. It does not label writing as AI-generated, and it does not grade or score students. Teachers decide how to interpret the report, within your existing academic integrity policies.

Students can edit and delete their own work until they submit it. Submitted work becomes part of the institution's course record, so requests to delete it go through the institution.

There are two. First, LTI launches do not work on mobile devices, which is a standard limitation of LTI tools, so students need a laptop or desktop computer. Second, the LTI editor is for single-author writing. For group writing, use the Google Docs extension, which supports documents with several authors.

Students write in a dedicated editor that does not offer built-in AI writing options the way Google Docs does. Teachers can open the class dashboard in one click from the LMS. And teachers see a term-long engagement report for each student, not just one assignment at a time.

No. Identity comes from your LMS through the LTI 1.3 launch, so there is no separate account or password. When students submit, the writing process report (PDF) and the final draft (Word document) are added to their LMS submission, where teachers review them in SpeedGrader or the equivalent grading view.

The editor keeps the in-progress draft and its edit history in the browser's local storage as the student types. If the teacher leaves auto-save on for the assignment (the default), the work is also saved online every few minutes, so students can continue on another device. Teachers see the work only after it is submitted.

Data is encrypted in transit (TLS 1.2+) and at rest (AES-256) and stored in the United States. It is never sold or used for advertising. It is kept for the duration of the institutional agreement and deleted within 60 days after it ends, unless the agreement sets different terms. The tool uses only standard LTI Advantage scopes and needs no LMS administrator privileges. Details are in the LTI privacy policy.

A HECVAT and supporting security documentation are available on request. The VPAT is published on this site. Process Feedback also reviews and signs institution-specific Data Privacy Agreements and similar questionnaires. Contact us to request any of these.

No signature is needed to install and test the tool in a test environment. The first term of a pilot is free, and a service agreement is provided if your institution needs one to cover student data. Pricing is annual and based on deployment scope and support level, not on the number of students; see institutional pricing.

Yes. Moodle sites can use the Process Feedback Moodle plugin, which is listed in the Moodle marketplace, or the LTI 1.3 integration. The plugin is installed once by a Moodle administrator and works in every assignment and discussion forum. The main difference is where data lives: with the plugin it stays in the student's browser and the institution's Moodle, while the LTI integration stores it with Process Feedback under an institutional agreement.

Writing activity is recorded in the student's own browser, and submitted process data is stored in the institution's Moodle with the submission. Process Feedback operates no server, database, or API that receives writing data from the plugin, so it cannot see or retrieve that data. See the Moodle plugin privacy policy.

The report page has a Share this Report option that uploads a report to Process Feedback, and it runs only when a user chooses it. Under a Tier 1 institutional subscription, it is disabled for the institution's email domains, so no report data from those accounts reaches Process Feedback. Students can always download their process data as a ZIP file instead.

Data that has not been submitted or downloaded stays in that browser, so clearing browser storage removes it and it does not follow the student to another device. Once the student submits, the process data is saved in Moodle with the submission.

Yes. The plugin can be installed and evaluated on a test or sandbox Moodle site before your institution's formal review.

No. It does not give an AI score or label a student as a cheater. It shows how a piece of work was written: writing time, revisions, copy-paste events, and when text appeared. You decide what the record means, usually after talking with the student. The guide on identifying AI-assisted writing patterns explains what is worth a closer look.

It is possible in principle, for example by retyping AI-generated text by hand or using an auto-typing tool. Retyped text often shows up as steady top-to-bottom writing with very little revision. Faking a real pattern of drafting, deleting, and revising over several days usually takes more work than doing the assignment. Treat the report as one piece of evidence, not proof.

The report shows the essay arriving as one or more large pastes, with little writing time in the document. That is why it helps to tell students at the start to do all their writing in the Google Doc or in a writing space. If a student says they drafted elsewhere, you can ask for the original file. The student submission guide explains this to students.

Yes. A report shows the drafting and revising behind the work, which a detection score cannot. Students can install the extension and create a report for a Google Doc they have already written, then share it as a link or a PDF. See the student guides.

Yes. Process Feedback can analyze each tab of a Google Doc separately. See how to explore Google Docs with multiple tabs.

Yes. An administrator can approve the extension and force-install it for an organizational unit, such as all students in a school, through the Google Admin Console. The IT deployment guide walks through each step.

Yes. It is free for individual teachers and students, with no account needed. Individual use does not include compliance coverage such as a signed Data Privacy Agreement. When your institution needs that, start with a free one-term pilot.

Yes. Every tool is free for individual teachers and students, with no account, credit card, or trial period. Institutions pay only when they need a formal agreement, compliance documents, or LMS integration. See pricing.

Yes. Process Feedback will stay free for individual teachers and students. Institutional plans are priced by what an institution needs, such as deployment, data handling, and support, not by the number of students or teachers.

Through institutional plans. Schools, districts, and universities that need a signed Data Privacy Agreement, compliance documents, support, or LTI integration pay for those. Process Feedback does not sell data or use it for advertising.

A signed Data Privacy Agreement, VPAT and HECVAT documents for procurement review, scheduled privacy audits, deployment support, teacher training, and support with an agreed response time. LTI integration is part of Tier 2. See institutional pricing.

Yes. The Moodle plugins are open-source software under the GNU GPL v3 or later, and anyone can download, install, and use them at no cost. Without a subscription, teachers and students download the writing process data as a ZIP file and load it into the report page themselves. With an institutional subscription, your Moodle site is added to Process Feedback's recognized domains, so the Open report button opens reports automatically. The subscription also includes a signed Data Privacy Agreement, support, and teacher training. See institutional pricing.

First, send us the host URL of each LMS environment (production, test, beta) so we can approve it. The LTI registration guide covers each step for Canvas, and we are glad to join a call for the setup.

Yes. Students can use voice typing in the Process Feedback editor or assignment page. Voice-typed text is typically inserted in larger chunks rather than character-by-character. As a result, these insertions often appear as paste events in the process report. The report reflects when text was added, but it does not record audio input or speech.

When students use voice typing in Google Docs, the resulting text is captured through Google Docs’ revision history. Voice-typed content often appears as larger blocks of inserted text and may be flagged as paste events labeled as “possibly voice-typed.” The report shows what text was added and when, but it does not capture audio or speech.