I just came across this method of forcing a student to save a copy of a spreadsheet to their Google Drive. I tried it out today, and it works nicely and is very easy to do.  Here are some quick instructions, but visit Tammy Worcester’s site for a detailed explanation. Thanks to Tammy and follow her @TammyWorcester on Twitter. 

1. Create a spreadsheet.
2. Share the spreadsheet with “anyone with the link.”
3. Go to http://goo.gl and paste in the URL of the shared document.
4. Add &newcopy at the end of the URL.

When you give the shortened URL to your students and they visit the page they see a message asking them, “Make a new copy of this document?”

The photo below makes Step 3 and Step 4 a bit clearer. Notice the &newcopy.

This is what the student sees: