I work with faculty who are doing similar assignments! In the past, we've used a couple of other methods:
- If you have access to Google docs - sometimes we've had students post a link to their Story Map in the doc. This is a good solution if it's not a huge deal if the projects are visible to everyone in the class. I've also worked with a few courses where they've used posting to Google docs for peer review sessions.
- Depending on the LMS that you use (Blackboard, Moodle, D2L, etc.) - sometimes using a Forum or post activity works well. We use Moodle - so we'll create a Moodle Forum and everyone can post a link to their Story Map. The pro about this option is that you can hide posts so individual students only see their own Story Map.
The biggest challenge we have with any alternative method - is that if a student doesn't make their Story Map visible publicly, no one can see it. Posting it to ArcGIS Online groups does offer additional methods to find work if someone makes it private or org-only permissions. But if the student posts the link without updating the share settings, then we'll have to play email tag to get the visibility updated. (or an admin has to overwrite it)
Some methods might be better than others - depending on what grading methods you have to use, and whether or not the Story Maps should be visible to everyone in the class (or not).
I hope that helps! Let me know if you have any follow up questions.