We are living in a world where people work from multiple devices -- phone, laptop, and computer - and need access to their files anywhere and anytime. UMBC’s active directory (AD) system serves the campus well but it doesn’t provide the level of flexibility for mobile devices and off-campus access that people need.

The higher education community, through an initiative by Internet2, has worked with a company named Box.com to provide a service that we believe will meet our needs and is secure. DoIT has signed an agreement to bring the Box.com service to UMBC and we will launch this in late-September once we intergrate our single-signon.

Students, faculty, and staff will be allowed to have web-based storage that they can use their myUMBC login to access. Files can be easily shared with others on campus and off-campus. You can even send a user a “URL” that allows someone that doesn’t have the Box.com service to access the file.

One of the nice features of Box.com is that is has great support for collaboration. It integrates well with Google Docs and we feel that faculty research groups will love the flexibility this provides in sharing data with other members of their research team.

Our plans for launching this service are to do a limited launch in the fall inside DoIT and to faculty and staff that want to be early adopters. We will make this service available to everyone, including students, in the spring. During the spring we will identify departments that need more flexibility for shared file storage than AD provides and transition them over to the Box.com offering.