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.

You can also have students 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 us 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. No accounts, no installations, and no LMS required. 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 features 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.

Not yet. Process Feedback for Word Online is scheduled for release in August 2026 -- you can follow progress on our Word Online page. Note that this covers Word Online (Word in the browser), not the Microsoft Word desktop app, which does not record a full edit history.

In the meantime, students can write in Google Docs with our Google Docs extension, use our online writing space, write in an LMS with the Process Feedback extension, or code in VS Code or our online compiler.

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. Our main focus is on showing the underlying data rather than interpreting it. We're 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. Also, you can refer to our guide on identifying AI-assisted writing patterns.

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. We have a browser extension built for LMSs that works in assignments and discussion boards. We also have pages with platform-specific guidance for Canvas, Blackboard, D2L, Moodle, and Schoology. For institutions that want a deeper integration, we support LTI.

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, in the AI era.

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.

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.