By Brooke Robinson, Contributing Writer
With the world becoming increasingly more technologically based, the question of storage is constantly on the minds of college students.
Fortunately, UNH has found a solution to this problem with a new system, Box @ UNH.
“Box @ UNH makes it easy for you to upload content, organize files, share links to files and manage file and folder permissions,” said Pete Larimer, the UNH Information Technology’s Enterprise Collaboration and Messaging Manager. “With Box @ UNH, you can collaborate with colleagues both inside and outside the university anytime, anywhere, from any device.”
Box.com is a cloud-based storage system that can be easily accessed by all students on all devices.
Every student is given 50GB of free storage, 100 times more than was previously available.
Box is similar to Google Drive and Dropbox in that files can be uploaded, shared and collaborated on.
There are add-ons to the Box package that are also available to students. Box Notes allows multiple people to work on the same file in real-time. Box Edit makes it easy for users to edit or create files on box instead of just uploading already completed files. Box Sync lets users sync all of their files automatically between desktop and online Box folders, thus ensuring you have the latest version of your file no matter when it gets updated.
Larimer and his team conducted a yearlong project to solve the problem with storage that the university was facing.
With the large diversity in devices used by students, it was crucial for the team to find a storage server that could accommodate Apple products, Androids, desktop computers, laptop computers and any other devices students could have.
“Box was chosen because it offers the most security and flexibility for our students, faculty and staff,” Larimer said.
Box is a secure solution for all technology, giving users the authority over who their files are shared with and preventing information from being released.
“A huge advantage of Box @ UNH is that it uses the Box.com platform, so we can take advantage of Box.com’s multiple data centers,” Larimer said. “Box.com has both backups and redundancy to ensure the most uptime possible. In other words, we are not dependent on a single server.”
Therefore, if something were to go wrong on one server, a backup would continue to allow students to have access to all of their work in the Box. Gone are the days of using technology as an excuse for not getting homework in on time.
“Box @ UNH enables a level of access and collaboration that has not been offered to the entire UNH community before, in that your data is accessible by you and anyone you choose to share with on any device,” Larimer explained.
UNH users log in to their Box account from unh.box.com with their UNH log in information.
Box is available 24 hours a day on any device with Internet connection.
After students graduate, their Box accounts are converted to personalized Box.com accounts so that none of their storage is lost.
For information about using Box @ UNH, visit it.unh.edu/box or contact the UNH IT Service Desk at 603-862-4242.
