Information Technology

Shared Documents in OneDrive and Office 365

While OneDrive is a phenomenally useful tool that makes it easy to share files in the College, University, and beyond, it also introduces complexity: it’s possible to share documents stored in OneDrive, SharePoint, and Teams with unauthorized individuals both inside or outside of Purdue, and to make files – potentially containing sensitive or confidential information – discoverable by anyone at Purdue.

What follows are some tips for sharing documents safely.  As you may know, there are a couple of ways to share documents in OneDrive.

WAYS TO SHARE

Create a special single-purpose “link” 

Share internally with specific people (not using a link)

SHARING WITH A LINK

When creating a “link” to a folder or document in OneDrive, the default setting is to share with “Anyone” who has the link.  This is a very powerful collaboration feature but has potential drawbacks.  Sensitive or restricted Purdue data should never be shared in this way since an “Anyone” link is not password protected.

Our recommendation is to: 

  1. Use OneDrive “links” sparingly. 
  2. Ensure that links are set to expire automatically.
  3. Use “link options” to share with “People you choose” or “People in purdue.edu” rather than sharing the link with “Anyone” (i.e. “Anyone” in the world who may come across the link now or in the future).

SHARING INTERNALLY WITH SPECIFIC PEOPLE

OneDrive allows you to share files/folders with specific people internally without using “links.”  For example, to share a folder, you can go to your “My Files” area of OneDrive, click the three dots “…” next to a folder name, and then select “Manage access.”  

Rather than creating a “link” you can use the “Direct access” option and add only specific people who should have access through the OneDrive file explorer interface and not via a link.  

This is the best way to ensure that ONLY authorized users, who have been deliberately added to a folder or file, will have access.  When adding Purdue people by name, you can be assured that only you and the specified Purdue people will have password protected access.

HOWEVER… there is a way to (deliberately or inadvertently) share files/folders with EVERYONE AT PURDUE.  This can be done by adding a group called “All Users” to a file/folder.  

While most of us will not likely need this feature, it is important to know that OneDrive (and Teams and SharePoint) has the ability to share documents very widely in a way that can be discoverable by anyone at Purdue (faculty/staff/students/etc.).

This is why, when you go to the OneDrive “search” box and type in some keywords, you may see many documents from people you do not know.  Or, you may see documents from people you do know, but did not know they had shared documents with you.  Don’t panic if you see your own documents in the search, or documents from COE committees and offices.  That is normal because you have access to your own documents and also documents from various Teams and SharePoint workspaces that you have been added to.

CONCLUSION

Please be deliberate and carful when storing or sharing documents in a collaborative cloud system of any kind such as: OneDrive / Box / Google Docs, etc.  Sensitive & restricted Purdue data, along with unregulated “private or confidential” data, should not be shared with unauthorized users or stored in any publicly accessible and unprotected location.  Here are some links that the central security team asked us to send along:

APPLICABLE POLICY AND PROCEDURES

Acceptable Use of IT Resources and Information Assets (VII.A.4)

Data Classification and Handling Procedures

Acceptable Service Use Page

FINAL TIP: HOW TO SEE EVERYTHING YOU ARE SHARING WITH OTHERS

If you would like to know what files/folders you are sharing with others in OneDrive, log into OneDrive…

https://purdue0-my.sharepoint.com/

…and select “Shared” in the left column close to the top.  Then select “Shared by you” to see the documents you are sharing with others.

Here is a screenshot showing the process to “stop sharing” in OneDrive:

“Stop Sharing” in OneDrive Online

This may be a good time for us all to do some shared document spring cleaning in OneDrive.  And by the way, deleting documents in OneDrive does not un-share them until you empty the “Recycle bin”.

CONSULTATION

If you need any assistance with sharing/un-sharing documents in OneDrive, SharePoint, or Teams, please contact Education IT (EdIT@purdue.edu) and we will be more than happy to schedule a consultation with you.

Connect to EDUROAM Wi-Fi

Purdue University supports the EDUROAM Wi-Fi network. EDUROAM is available at hundreds of institutions throughout the world and once you connect to EDUROAM, you should, in theory, be able to roam across institutions seamlessly without needing to manually reconnect your devices at each institution.

However, there are a couple of things to consider when connecting to EDUROAM:

  1. Before you travel to another institution, be sure to connect to EDUROAM at your home institution at least ONCE to initialize your account.
  2. When you initially authenticate, use your username@purdue.edu as your username (do not simply use your username alone).
    • If you have an “alternate” email address, do not use that. Instead, use your Purdue “alias” or username + “@purdue.edu”.
    • If you are based at another institution, sign into EDUROAM using your email address from your institution. For example: your-username@your-institution.edu
  3. When you visit another institution, if you are not able to connect automatically, it is possible that you may need to “forget” the EDUROAM network and then re-add it. Be sure to log in with username@purdue.edu (or username@your-institution.edu).

To connect to EDUROAM at Purdue, simply look for EDUROAM in the list of available wireless networks and select it. You will then be asked to enter your username (e.g. username@purdue.edu or username@your-institution.edu) + regular password (not multi-factor). After authenticating, you will likely be asked to “Trust” a certificate which is normal and OK to do. Note: if your Windows computer asks to “Use my Windows user account” do not check that checkbox and proceed with your username@purdue.edu or username@your-institution.edu.

Purdue has a tool that can assist with connecting to EDUROAM located here:

Connect to EDUROAM at Purdue
https://cloud.securew2.com/public/62946/wl-prd-eduroam/

For more information about wireless networks at Purdue, see:

https://www.it.purdue.edu/services/wifi.html

For more information about EDUROAM see:

https://eduroam.org/where/

Need help connecting your College of Education laptop/device? Please contact us at: EdIT@purdue.edu

Connectivity problems @ Home?

This can occur for a variety of reasons such as a server, system or ISP being overwhelmed, or your home network dropping momentarily. If this happens, try to reconnect.

Some things to look out for on your home network:

1) Are you too far from your wifi router? Make sure the signal is strong. If not, consider moving closer to the wifi router. Also, consider plugging directly into your router with a network cable if that is at all possible. A wired network is more stable than a wireless one.

2) Is anybody else in your house streaming (such as YouTube, Netflix, etc.)? If so, might have to ask them to stop. Depending on your home network, steaming an HD movie, for example, can overwhelm a slower home internet connection.

It is possible that your home Internet connection can be experiencing problems, especially if many people in the area / neighborhood / city are using it heavily. This may not be noticeable when browsing the web, or streaming video/audio in a one-way download; however it will be noticeable when doing live two-way video or audio. You may want to contact your ISP to ask if loads are high in your area. You can also try power cycling your cable modem and wireless router. If a video+audio call is choppy, try turning off video and see if audio improves.

How To Collaborate Online

  1. Email – official Purdue communication
    • Continue to monitor and respond to emails
  2. Remote desktop – databases and U: drive      
    1. Access your personalized environment and secure resources as usual on your office computer
    2. Access restricted databases with your office computer (e.g. ACAD MS Access databases).
  3. Teams –real-time office chat, video, file sharing (not for classes)
  4. Zoom – videoconferencing and screensharing
    • Purdue campus license
  5. WebEx – videoconferencing and screensharing
    • Faculty and staff – 1000 connections
    • Students – 8 connections
  6. OneDrive (or Box)
    • share documents with staff and students outside of your office
  7. LMS – Brightspace
    • Use internal messaging tools to communicate with students

For information about How to Teach Remotely, see:

Teaching Remotely Overview – from Purdue Innovative Learning
https://www.purdue.edu/innovativelearning/teaching-remotely/

See:
https://edit.education.purdue.edu/download2/How-To-Collaborate.pdf

Microsoft Teams

Teams logo

Dear College of Education,

You may have received an email over the weekend about being added to Microsoft Teams.  That was me (Bob Evans).  Microsoft Teams is part of Office 365 and is Microsoft’s flagship tool for team collaboration which includes chat, videoconferencing, file sharing, etc.  It is a great tool for both local and remote collaboration.  And because it is licensed by Purdue, it is secure and not being used for commercial data mining of University operations.  Teams will be replacing Skype for Business in July of 2021.

Here is a short video that gives a quick overview of Teams:

Welcome to Teams

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/video-welcome-to-microsoft-teams-b98d533f-118e-4bae-bf44-3df2470c2b12

This tool has recently become available to the campus and last week I began staging Teams for our College so people can use it if desired.

A “Team” has been created for each major department in our College.

Within each department, “Channels” have been created for each office, center and/or program.  Channels are where the work and collaboration takes place (chat, video, file sharing, etc.).  If you see a “lock” icon next to a channel, that means the channel is private and only accessible to the members of that channel (a team includes everyone, but a channel can be a subset of the team).

Feel free to check out Microsoft Teams.  You can access it via any web browser by logging into Office 365…

https://www.office.com/

…and look for the “Teams” icon:

Teams icon

You can also download a Teams app for Windows, Mac OS, iOS, or Android.

Here are training resources for Teams:

Teams Interactive Demo

https://teamsdemo.office.com/

Microsoft Teams Video Training

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/microsoft-teams-video-training-4f108e54-240b-4351-8084-b1089f0d21d7

End user training for Microsoft Teams

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/enduser-training

For those who want to use Microsoft Teams and do not have the client app installed on your computer/laptop/tablet/phone, you can locate the app using this web page:

Download Microsoft Teams on any Device

https://teams.microsoft.com/downloads

Please send email to EdIT@purdue.edu if you have any questions or need an additional private channel added to your departmental Team.  EdIT is still learning about Teams and we hope to learn together with all of you as this tool unfolds.  Thank you!  😊

Robert Evans
Director, Education Office of Information Technology
Managing Director, Teaching Resource Center
Chair, College of Education Safety Committee
Purdue University College of Education

11 Classroom Technology Tips to Help Instructors Speed Up Time to Teaching

From Purdue IT:

“For instructors, getting the most out of class time often requires uploading presentation materials and priming classroom technology before the start of class. When the clock is ticking, a basic understanding of classroom technology at Purdue and a few best practices can help ensure a seamless transition from pre-class setup to teaching.”

For more information see:

https://it.purdue.edu/newsroom/2019/190813-Classroom-Tips.php

Purdue Box FAQ

Where do I log into Purdue Box?

https://purdue.box.com   { log in with Duo }

What Is Purdue Box?

Box is a cloud-based file storage and collaboration service. It provides users with the ability to upload files, securely share them with others, and collaborate effectively. Purdue Box is a Purdue-managed implementation of Box tied to your Purdue email address.

Storage of restricted data in Box requires prior review by Purdue’s IT Security and Policy group. Restricted data storage in Box may also require approval from campus offices and committees responsible for contractual compliance and research regulatory affairs. Restricted data cannot be stored in individual user folders. Controlled research data must be stored in special folder structures governed by policy. Project-specific folders can be provided for approved restricted data uses.

If you are a Purdue researcher with controlled data storage needs, please visit the Research Computing page at https://www.rcac.purdue.edu/services/ or email rcac-help@purdue.edu for more information.

Who is eligible to have a Purdue Box account?

Due to licensing and regulatory restrictions, Purdue Box is only available to currently-active Purdue faculty, staff, and students.

Box accounts are not created in advance. Unless your previously-existing individual account using a Purdue email address was moved to Purdue Box, you will only have a Purdue account if someone shares a file with your Purdue email address or you access Box as part of Purdue University. A Purdue Box account is created for you the first time you do this at https://purdue.box.com.

What features does Purdue Box have compared to my free Box account?

Purdue Box offers a number of enhanced features over free Box accounts.

File Size Upload Limit: Free Account: 250 MB,  Purdue Box Account: 15 GB
Available Storage: Free Account:10 GB, Purdue Box Account: 5,000 GB
Purdue Authentication: Free Account: No, Purdue Box Account: Yes

Can I use Box on a mobile device?

Yes. Box has clients for most mobile devices. Click the Apps link in the Settings menu to see available downloads.

What training is available for Purdue Box?

You can find free Box training at Box.com. Box provides recorded and live tutorials on Box features.

You can also find Box training at the following link:

https://community.box.com/t5/Box-University-Courses/Box-University-User-Courses-Live-amp-Self-Paced/ta-p/57511

LinkedIn Learning also has a number of courses on using Box which are free to Purdue faculty and staff. Please visit https://one.purdue.edu and click on “Professional Tutorials” to access LinkedIn Learning as a Purdue faculty or staff member.


For more Purdue Box info, see the Purdue IT Gold Answers : https://purdue.edu/goldanswers/1014020

Last Updated 2/2023