Whether you are a student, faculty, or staff member, it is important to think about your data - where it lives, what format it is in, how safe and secure is it, who else has access to it, and how long it should be accessible.
Resources
Wake Forest provides multiple resources for creating, managing, sharing, and storing your data using your WFU account. Google's Drive platform, within our Google Workspace environment, is our official enterprise cloud storage solution. Other cloud storage resources are available for specific needs, as outlined, below.
Adobe
Adobe Creative Cloud gives you access to a collection of software for graphic design, video editing, web development, photography, and cloud services. Users have 100GB of cloud storage with more available upon request. Adobe provides the ability to migrate your data and your Adobe creations from your WFU account to a personal account when you leave the university.
Canvas
Canvas is our supported Learning Management System (LMS). You can export your Canvas content from your WFU-affiliated account to a personal account when you graduate or leave the university as you lose access upon departure. It’s important to note that Faculty do retain student submissions even when a student is no longer with the university.
As a Google Workspace campus, you have access to a number of Google apps, including Drive, Classroom, and Sites, for collaboration and storage, as well as unlimited storage. As a best practice for data preservation, use a Google Shared Drive where teams can easily store, archive, search, and access their files anywhere, from any device. Unlike files in My Drive, files in Shared Drives belong to the team instead of an individual. You can transfer ownership of documents/resources to others within the WFU community.
Kaltura
Kaltura is an enterprise-level, cloud-based media management platform for storing, publishing, and streaming videos, video collections, and other rich media such as audio recordings and images via your computer or mobile device. Kaltura has an unlimited storage capacity so it the recommended system for campus to store and share video content.
OneDrive
OneDrive is a platform for file storage and collaboration. OneDrive provides security for your intellectual property, internal and external collaboration, and easy access to files while working remotely or traveling. OneDrive offers unlimited cloud storage and allows you to share your files with internal and external users.
Storage for Sensitive Data
When dealing with sensitive data, such as HIPAA, FERPA, Personal Health Information (PHI), Personal Identifiable Information (PII), WFU Internal Resources, and other sensitive file types, it is critical to use a tool that safely and securely stores data while also providing the ability to set security and sharing permissions for the data. Although WFU's Google Drive and OneDrive accounts support the storage of sensitive data types as referenced above, Google Shared Drive is the recommended solution to easily store, archive, search, and access files anywhere, from any device because the data belongs to the team, not an individual. Keep in mind that permissions can be set at the file level as well as the folder level.
Request a consultation!
If you are a faculty member looking for more guidance on data best practices for your research or scholarly work, contact the Digital Initiatives and Scholarly Communication (DISC) team to request a data curation consultation. They have also created this helpful Guide to Managing & Preserving Research Data to get you started.
If you are a faculty member interested in learning more about data best practices for class projects, or a student participating in a class project, you can reach out to the Academic Technology Team or the Digital Initiatives and Scholarly Communication (DISC) team to request a consultation.
If you are looking for guidance on data preservation or securely storing your data, please reach out to Information Security at infosec@wfu.edu.
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