An Out Of The Box Solution To Shared Files

Fri, 26 Feb 2016 17:03:48 -0500
box, doit, file, storage, uaa

In the autumn of 2012, the Office of Undergraduate Education (OUE), a unit in the Division of Undergraduate Academic Affairs (UAA), accepted the limitations of its shared drives, much like everyone else on campus. The lack of space, the disorganization, the dozens of stray folders attached to staff that may or may not still be with UMBC. All of these inconveniences had become just part of the daily grind.

Then, in December, Vice Provost & Dean, Dr. Diane Lee asked UAA to conduct an examination of not only current practices in regard to file storage, but also possible alternatives. This set in motion a process that has not only changed the way UAA works, but is now changing the way work is done across the entire university and even at the University System of Maryland (USM) level.

“Really this entire thing started when Dr. Lee reached out and saw a need for us to take a look at our current practices,” said Amanda Knapp, Assistant Vice Provost of Academic Standards and Policy Administration. “Our workgroup was established in early 2013 and was tasked with assessing the needs of the seven units within UAA, and trying to find where there were opportunities for improvement as it related to file management.”

The workgroup consisted of Knapp, Janet McGlynn, Director of Communication and Outreach, Debbie Michaels, Program Management Specialist, Jarrett Kealey, Assistant Director and Website Technician Michael Mower.

Knapp said, “One of the first steps that we took as a workgroup was to survey each of the seven units within UAA as well as a few outside partners. A common finding was that there was little business continuity. Also, some files were found on flash drives, so security became a huge concern. We would find that, as a division, version control was also a factor. These were all things that Dr. Lee encouraged us to assess across the division.”

Investigation revealed inconsistencies from unit to unit in the way that personnel changes were managed, the way files were named and organized, protocol for use of shared space (as opposed to personal space), and the process by which files might be purged. An underlying premise of the UAA workgroup regarded ownership of the files.

“They’re not our files. They’re not the files of Amanda, Janet, Jarrett, and Debbie but they’re the files of the university, reflective of the work we’re doing in our various roles,” said Knapp.

Even more interesting, when outside departments across campus were asked the same questions in early 2013, similar answers were received. In short, UMBC had no standardized business practices in place for file storage and maintenance, or even any resources that might be used as a guideline.

For some, just being able to access the files at all could be problematic. “Trying to login from off campus using VPN, it’s hit or miss, and it makes it very difficult to do the work that you’re supposed to be doing,” said Michaels.

At a joint meeting, Kena Jackson, from the Department of Enrollment Management, demonstrated how it used the university’s existing shared umbrella file management system. With this in mind, the UAA workgroup then decided to explore available alternatives for file storage, with the assistance of the Division of Information Technology (DoIT).

Having considered many options, the workgroup eventually settled on the file- sharing model from Box.com, a cloud storage solution. The workgroup decided that since they were heavy users of shared space, the best way to test Box was to give it a try.

“To test Box, Academic Standards and Policy Administration (ASPA) served as a pilot group, transferring over 24,000 files fairly quickly,” said Knapp. “The process was quite seamless and we realized, this is great!”

Having tried it themselves, Knapp and her team were now ready to tell others.

Knapp said, “The transition to Box improved our efficiency and it was a really good experience.”

Many were still hesitant, however.

“The greatest fear that people seemed to have was actually taking files from the traditional shared drive and putting them into Box. What if there’s a glitch? What if it doesn’t work? Deleting files out of the shared drive was a really scary thing to do for ASPA, but we did it, and we could show that we did it and it worked perfectly fine,” said Knapp. “This experience was useful in sharing the proposal across the rest of the division.”

Once the division decided that Box.com would be the solution, the next step was to establish a file sharing structure, naming conventions and guidelines for best practices. This part of the process would take the longest.

Knapp said, “We spent countless meetings, just the workgroup, literally on a whiteboard, mapping out what we were looking for in an overarching structure that the entire division could potentially implement. And we vetted that with different folks just to see, ‘Does this make sense?’”

Kealey said, “I think that’s really the lesson for the other departments, is that there is a process, and you shouldn’t just dump and move, and you should actually take a step back and consider.”

“What we ultimately ended up doing,” Knapp said, “was creating a file management guidelines document for the UAA units to refer to. It was very important to our group that we had some standardized structures in place, yet offered flexibility for individual decisions to be made.”

The finished product was something that the entire group could stand behind, with entire pages dedicated to specific items, such as naming conventions and version control. (The Guidelines document is attached.)

Knapp said, “We were all really proud of the guidelines document, which is now being utilized by quite a number of other units on campus, and even at the USM level. So, the work has had a broader reach and been accepted in ways we never imagined.”

Even though they are very happy with the guidelines document they produced, that’s not to say that they’ve finished with it. One example is their experiences with the Box Sync application.

“We view this as an evolving document because there will always be new technologies that we’re learning about or factors that we hadn’t considered. A perfect example is that we had some complications with Box Sync; it just wasn’t functioning, and sometimes files were duplicated, we couldn’t figure out why. It ended up as part of our guidelines, that Box Sync became a security concern for us, and one of our guidelines is that we do not encourage the use of Box Sync, unless you have a document that does not contain sensitive information, and you know you’re going away somewhere where you’re not going to have internet access, and you want it on your desktop so you can keep working,” said Knapp.

“It’s great if you’re using Box Sync on a case-by-case basis but it is definitely not a guideline that you should be syncing everything, all the time. It is a great feature, but it needs to be handled very sensitively,” said Knapp.

The entire process has brought about great changes in the way UAA manages its files.

Knapp said, “The primary change is that we’re all working within a shared system, where before we used flash drives and we privately stored data; now the vice provost or dean will have access to the information.

“The way we conduct day-to-day operations has also changed. We can now use shared documents, and we’ve shied away from emailing attachments, because an email attachment can become out of date. We also highly encourage people to use Box Edit, and share the link instead of attachments,” said Knapp.

To date, UAA has transferred nearly 80,000 files successfully to Box, and have deleted over 1,500 redundant or out-of-date files, which are discovered during mandatory annual reviews conducted by unit leaders. Default expiration dates for files to be purged are encouraged but not required.

This file management initiative isn’t something that the UAA workgroup takes full credit for because there were a lot of people involved at all stages of the process. “In particular, the workgroup had great support from the Vice Provost and colleagues in Enrollment Management. DoIT also played a key role in the transition offering valuable support and encouragement. It was a team effort in every way, which by all accounts, is the success story!” said Knapp.