Worked example · IT · Year 7

Sharing files securely

DCF: Interacting and collaborating → Storing and sharing

What this is

A secure Year 7 response, annotated so you can see which success criterion each part meets. It also works as your answer key: the six rows below are the correct settings. Show it after pupils have committed to their own answers.

The decision table, completed

No. Who can get at it What they can do Why that is the right choice
1 People in my school with the link Viewer The whole class needs to read it, and naming 30 people one at a time would take all lesson. Viewer stops anyone editing my notes. If I gave Commenter I would end up with 30 comments to wade through; Editor would let someone delete my work.
2 Specific people — the other three in my group Editor All four of us have to type into the same file, so Editor is the only role that works. It stays on Specific people because only four people need it, not the year group.
3 Specific people — my teacher Commenter Commenter lets her suggest changes without altering my writing, so the essay is still my own work and I can see every suggestion before I accept it. Viewer would stop her leaving feedback at all.
4 Specific people — the two named office staff Viewer Medical notes are personal information about other people, so only the two staff who need it get access. "People in my school with the link" would be wrong here even though everyone on it is in school, because the whole school does not need to read a classmate's medical details.
5 Nothing — I do not open it or forward it "Anyone with the link" means anyone outside school who is sent that link can see photographs of pupils. I would tell the person who posted it to change the link to People in my school, or delete it, and tell a member of staff. Forwarding it to say "look at this" makes the leak bigger.
6 Specific people — the remaining three, with one of them made the owner Editor, and hand over ownership If I stay the owner and my account is later tidied up, they lose the file. Only an owner can transfer ownership, so I have to do it before I leave the project. Then I can be removed without breaking anything.

Each row names a real role and a real link scope, and each reason says what would go wrong one setting up and one setting down. Evidences criteria 1, 2 and 3; rows 4 and 5 evidence criteria 4 and 5.

Fix the mistake

Alys made three separate errors. First, she chose Anyone with the link when Rhys is in her school and signed in to a school account, so Specific people would have reached him and nobody else. Second, she chose Editor when Rhys only needed to read the homework, which means he could rewrite or delete it by accident. Third, she shared the folder and not the file, and in Google Drive access to a folder is inherited by everything inside it — so every other file she ever drops in that folder is now public too, without her doing anything.

Posting the link in a public chat made it worse: an "Anyone with the link" link works for anyone it is forwarded to, and she has no way of knowing where it has ended up.

What she should have done: right-click the single file, choose Share, type Rhys's school email address, set him to Viewer, and send. Right now she should open the folder's sharing settings, change General access from "Anyone with the link" back to Restricted, and check the list of everything in that folder.

Names three distinct faults with the correct terms, explains the folder inheritance trap, and gives both the right method and the repair. Evidences criteria 1, 2, 3 and 5.

Why this response is secure