Grading with Less Paper

I've begun in recent weeks to move toward using less papers in my assessment.  Previously, I've set up a bin each year with a folder for each student inside a folder for each class.  Work would be returned here and students were responsible for "homework buddies," and would collect work and let their buddies know what they missed.  It failed.  Students didn't collect their work, some not even looking at it all year, and they wouldn't take care of their homework buddies, so I had to catch the person up anyway.

So, I've set up Google Docs.  Each class has a folder (still) and each student has a folder within his/her class (still).  But it's digital.  I grade their work on rubrics, which I save to my computer, then upload to Google Docs. Students can only see their own folders, so when I upload work and share it with the individual folder, only that student can see the rubric.  I followed the steps outlined by this teacher to do the same method for midterm (project) grading.  Students get much more immediate feedback--they don't have to wait for me to put things in their folders, remember to check, etc--and it saves tons and tons of paper.

This is not to say this process has been without its problems; students forget to check it (it doesn't sesem to send an email when there's new forms shared), forget how to log in, forget the process altogether.  Some students simply don't like the technology.  Overall, though, it seems to be a successful method by which feedback on their work can be shared and with less overall paperwork.