File Sharing Options
File Sharing Options
The decommissioning of the Dean of Students filer server and the termination of the Vshare file sharing service provides us with an opportunity to review the availability of various file-sharing tools, and services to be avoid because their use violates both University and Dean of Students protocols in that documents do not remain in the custody of the University.
Secure file transfer, secured by Accellion, has been available for some time, but at this point effectively replaces Vshare. Note that login requires a Vanderbilt email address rather than a VUnetID. Accellion should be used when one of us wishes to share a file or files with a large, ad hoc, group of people, or when very large files are shared among the members of any sized group.
Using the secure file transfer rather than email attachments has at least three virtues: First, it keeps mail servers from being clogged with multiple copies of the same document. Second, the process is more secure than sending email attachments. And third, the file is deleted from the Accellion site after a period of time.
Files can be shared with folks who do not have VUnetIDs and passwords through Accellion, but the process is clunky: non VU persons, receive download links via email, enter their respective email address to which the file was sent. They are then asked for a password. At this point they must click on the “forgot password” button, at which point they will be sent temporary passwords which they my use to download their files. https://accellion1r.mc.vanderbilt.edu/courier/web/1000@/wmLogin.html
Box is a way of sharing files that need to be reviewed and perhaps edited by, several persons, or files whose versions need to be tracked. Login with VUnetID and password is required, https://vanderbilt.app.box.com/login . Box is very similar to DropBox, with which so many of us are familiar, but in the case of Vanderbilt’s implementation of Box, the documents stay within University custody.
SharePoint has functions similar to Box, but is not as easy to use. It’s virtue is that it has additional features of which some of our colleagues have taken advantage. Setting up document sharing in SharePoint will likely require assistance from our IT support personnel. A link to the Dean of Students SharePoint space can be found at http://www.vanderbilt.edu/deanofstudents/4staff/ (Dean of Students for Staff).
Shared drives are used by many departments as a means of keeping at hand documents that are used, say, on an annual basis, or for which access is needed by multiple folks, or a succession of users. Setting up a shared drive, and adding and deleting users from it, requires the services of VUIT support.
Note that Dean of Students file server—on which most shared files or group folders now reside—is scheduled to be decommissioned at the end of May. Our IT support team will move current data from the file server to similar folders on the VUIT Big Data services. To facilitate this process, department heads have been asked to oversee the deletion of files that have not been used in some time.
F. Clark Williams and the VUIT support staff embedded in the Dean of Students office can help DoS colleagues determine which of the file sharing services is best for a given need or task.
What Dean of Students professional staff, graduate student staff, and student workers must avoid using for work purposes is any “cloud” resource whose use results in documents being outside the custody of the University. Examples include the aforementioned DropBox, and GoogleDrive, which is lamentable since so far, GoogleDocs appears to be the most widely used tool for collaborative editing in real time.