Quick Questions & Answers:
Where can I put my files for my students to access? Pg. 4
Where can my department collaborate on the same files online? Pg. 3
What is this “H-drive” my peers keep talking about? Pg. 1
What do I do with my really big files? Pg. 2
Contents
NETWORK DRIVES ... 1
The H: Drive ... 1
The G: Drive... 1
The O: Drive ... 1
Other Lettered Drives ... 1
PORTABLE STORAGE ... 2
USB-Drives ... 2
External Hard Drives ... 2
SD/MicroSD/Memory Cards ... 2 ONLINE STORAGE ... 3 SharePoint ... 3 Email ... 3 Off-Campus Resources ... 3 FILE DISTRIBUTION ... 4 Moodle ... 4 SharePoint ... 4 Email ... 4 Staff Webspace ... 4 G: Drive ... 4
NETWORK DRIVES
Network drives exist on the King’s network, so you must be logged in to the network in order to access them. If you need access to drives from home, you must set up either VPN access or a Remote Desktop connection.
The H: Drive
Upon its creation, the letter “H” was chosen for this drive because it’s the first letter of “home.” Your H-drive will follow you as you login to different networked
machines around the campus. It allows you to save a document in your office, then walk across campus and login to a classroom computer and have access to it there. The H-drive is your own private space that you can access only by logging in as you. Though there is no specified limit to H-drive storage, we do ask you to maintain it so that old files don’t take up too much space on our system. If you have reached your H-drive limit, please contact the Help Desk for information about expanding it.
The G: Drive
The G-drive is where some instructors post relevant files for students to access. It’s a place where Faculty can write to (save/edit documents) and students can read from (view files). Say you teach a course where you want students to work in a small software package, simply post it on G: and students can open it there. It’s ideal for larger project files that may not fit in an email or may take too long to download from Moodle. NOTE: Some departments have specialized G-drives that
do not correspond with the campus-wide G-drive. If you’re not sure which you have or you don’t have any, let us know by contacting the Help Desk.
The O: Drive
Similar to G:, the O-drive is open to staff members only. Students cannot access files on O: and it creates and easy way for departments to pass files without worrying about download speeds. It is viewable by ALL STAFF, so confidential files should not be transmitted using this method.
Other Lettered Drives
IITS has created many shared drives over the years, so your department may
make use of many other letters of the alphabet to have shared areas. If you feel like you’re missing access to a shared drive that you need to perform your duties, email the Help Desk to have your access sorted out.
PORTABLE STORAGE
There are many options for portable storage at King’s—ways that you can carry your files on a physical drive and keep in your pocket, briefcase, etc. Portable storage is ideal for bringing home large files that you may not have finished up with at work. Many portable storage options make use of the USB ports on your computer (the right image shows what USB ports look like). If the USB ports on your computer are in a difficult-to-reach location, extension cords are available at most electronic stores.
USB-Drives
AKA: Flash, thumb, jump, or travel drives, etc.
Our modern answer to the old floppy disc, USB Drives range in size from 16 megabytes (MB) to many gigabytes (GB). You can plug them in to any public or office computer on campus and save files to them. They’re often small and easy to carry around, so they’re ideal for travel, but easy to forget/lose. Once you plug in the USB Drive, you
can use it like any other drive on your computer—drag/drop, edit/delete, and copy/paste files.
External Hard Drives
USB drives operate using flash storage while external hard drives have moving parts. This helps them to hold much more data, though they may be larger and require more power from your computer. External hard drives can be great for archiving a semester’s worth of projects or a computer backup file, but are rarely used for everyday purposes. External hard drives often connect to your computer using the USB plug or firewire/1364 connection (most King’s computers do not have a firewire/1364 port).
SD/MicroSD/Memory Cards
Made popular by cameras and recording devices, SD cards are small plastic “cards” that fit into a card-reader. Most King’s computers do not have SD card readers, though if your course requires lots of photographs it may be wise to but a USB-Multi-card reader, which would allow you to connect a device via the USB port that could read your SD card. SD cards are very small and often stay inside of a camera or recorder so they don’t get damaged. They can also store large amounts of data.
NOTE: Though all of the above options are great ways to take your files with you, at
home or at the office, please be aware that these devices can get corrupted without
warning. Though it’s become much rarer than when floppy discs were the popular
ONLINE STORAGE
It’s become increasingly popular to keep files “in the cloud,” or online. For tech-heavy users, this is the only way to go. If you work on a PowerPoint file in your office, then run out to the coffee shop and add another slide while you’re there on your tablet, then head home to work on your personal laptop, keeping files online is the best option because it allows you to connect to files using multiple devices. Not every tablet will have USB or MicroSD slots, but you will likely access the internet from your phone, tablet, and computer. Likewise, you may choose the internet to make files available to your students (lectures, readings, videos, etc.).
SharePoint
Using SharePoint, you can create a personal site and keep whatever documents you need there. This can be created using your King’s
credentials at https://sharepoint.kings.edu. You can also allow people to access your site with various permission roles, which makes SharePoint a great workspace for collaboration. If you choose to keep your site personal, you could upload files there, the go home an access them from the same website address using your King’s credentials. What’s more,
SharePoint provides browser-based editing platforms that let you do basic Word, Excel, and PowerPoint editing without having to launch (or own) the software on your computer.
A steady standby for most savvy students when they’re on the run is the classic “email it to yourself.” Simply send yourself a file that you’d like to retrieve elsewhere. This is easy and advantageous, but be sure to clean-up your mailbox from time to time so you don’t exceed your mailbox limit. Occasionally, if you forget your USB drive or don’t have time to login to SharePoint, emailing is a safe bet.
Off-Campus Resources
Though King’s cannot officially support all of the various options for cloud-based file hosting (iCloud by Apple or SkyDrive by Microsoft), there are some advantages to using them that SharePoint cannot provide. Primarily, options like GoogleDrive (drive.google.com) and Dropbox (dropbox.com) allow syncing, which would keep a folder on your computer synced with your files online. You save a file into the Dropbox folder and it will automatically upload so that when you go home, the Dropbox folder on your home computer will download it and you can continue working without remembering to
upload/download your latest versions. The downside to this option is that syncing for these options is only available using software, and you will likely not have permissions to install such software in labs or classrooms. You could download/upload versions of the files by logging in at the service’s website, which is not as easy as the sync option, but is fully functional.
FILE DISTRIBUTION
If you’re trying to distribute files to your students, there are options on campus that could save you lots of time and energy. While some instructors still email groups of students through WebAdvisor with syllabi or readings, many have made use of our other services designed just for this purpose.
Moodle
Our learning management system is built for this purpose and many more. Contact the Academic and Instructional Technology to learn about how you can post files to a private course area available to you and your students. You have the ability to add files to the site, and your students can download those files and have readings done for class. Moodle allows you to collect files from students as well, but seeing it as a place to post documents is a very basic way that you can get the ball rolling using it. What’s best about Moodle is that our team
can manage enrollment for you so you don’t have to juggle all those student access requests.
SharePoint
Again, you can create a site that’s private for your students. This is best is you’re encouraging collaboration on the same files among students. Group presentations, large group papers, and other projects can be accessed and collaborated on within SharePoint. One limitation is that you will have to manage your users on your own, making sure that each student has access and knows the address to your SharePoint site.
In a pinch, it’s sometimes easiest to email all of your students a file. This is not a suggested method because it bogs down the email system and fills student inboxes with data. Though your data is important, if students don’t monitor their mailboxes closely, too many attachments could close their mailbox if it exceeds the quota.
Staff Webspace
Though perhaps the crudest way to post course-specific files on the internet, King’s does allow faculty to host websites available for public (anyone in the world) viewing. If you’re open about your course work and choose to make things like a syllabus or notes available to the world and you’re used to a web-editing experience, then this could be the best option for you. For some, it is a difficult option because it often requires knowledge of software or coding.
G: Drive
A classic way to distribute files here at King’s, the major limitation is file access for your students. They must have access to the King’s network (often meaning being on campus) to access the G-drive, which can be an issue for commuters or off-campus residents.
