Eradicating the Staff Shared Drive

[powdarrmonkey]

On my list of things to achieve before I die is this note:

"12. Eradicate staff shared drive and find a model to emulate its function in a sane way."

It's currently just a global mapped drive. There are guidelines for its use but:

• there is no standardised filing system, so important documents get 'lost' and my phone rings
• it's impossible for departments to see how much space is being consumed
• no security controls are in place to prevent tampering
• it's a dumping ground for all sorts of rubbish, and staff do not tidy up after themselves

A solution should allow staff to share documents between themselves and departments where applicable, but should not be a dumping ground for any old rubbish. It should be easily accountable, regimentally organised and easy to maintain.

I'm researching in other ways but briefly, I'd like to survey EduGeek members for how you deal with this problem. Please don't turn it into a bash-fest, flamewar or other -ism.

TIA.

[gl3nnym]

We have an RM network and make use of department groups for example Art and PE. Staff in these groups have access to certain folders on the shared drive and cannot access other department folders. Maybe something like this:

Art Teachers -> Art Folder
PE Teachers -> PE Folder

The staff are then restricted using NTFS permissions as to which folders they can and cannot access.

[pete]

1) Got fed up with it, implemented ACLs (with SLT approval) that meant staff could only crap in their depts\dept name subfolder. Department areas are read-only unless you're a member of $dept.
2) Admin Staff have their own subfolder for "running of school/confidential stuff" with access for SLT, Admin Staff and a few other people with various roles.
3) Stuff of relevance to everyone (staff handbook, fire regs, maps, image library) is stored with mostly read-only permissions to teaching staff, read/write to admin staff.
4) Shanghaied SLT member to be unofficial File Share Nazi.

It kind of works (well, it looks tidy) and no-one asks me where things are. So that's a win as far as I'm concerned. The downside of not having a shared drive for staff is you'll need deduplication if your lot are anything like mine. A shared drive and one copy of $gigantic_video is better than no shared drives and a copy per home drive.

[TechMonkey]

1) A shared drive and one copy of $gigantic_video is better than no shared drives and a copy per home drive.

My experience is that you end up with both!

Our shared area is a mess & are still looking for the best way to manage it. We have similar to pete & gl3nnym at the moment & nothing is ever deleted (just in case) even when we tell them we could archive it to DVD. The best I have seen is a wholesale copy of their whole area just in case and then because they were going to organise the 2nd copy and replace the first copy with the organised one. After 2 years I'm still fighting that one as we can't now delete it as a lot of work has gone into organising the resources but it isn't ready yet!!

It has got worse recently as videos have been making an appearance, including a HD version of a news report that was bigger than is possible to display on our screens!!

[Little-Miss]

I have staff area > individual staff name

staff area > year group folder

staff area > subject

They cant dump in the staff area only in the folders linked to them. Ok, doesn't solve the size issue but at least i can see who is the worst.

[GrumbleDook]

Documents libraries in Sharepoint? Plenty of previous threads with ideas about how to do that. Even if you don't like the idea of Sharepoint, the governance models can then be adapted to use with a conventional filing system too.

[jcollings]

Another vote for Sharepoint here.

[Sylv3r]

I pulled our shared areas around 12 - 18 months ago and now use sharepoint as our resource area. The necessary permissions are set that only teaching staff of a particular department can access their area. Students also have access to the English page with just the English student resources as an example.

I must admit, our shared area was becoming a dumping ground and the sorting and uploading to Sharepoint did help with rectifying these issues. In a year or two's time we may need to stamp our feet a little to ensure that the Sharepoint document libraries aren't following suit.

[MatthewL]

Create a fresh one but totally locked down with structure.

Create with department, i.e. Admin, Management, Finance etc and then create a subject one with each under but make heavy use of permissions and security groups.

[webman]

With our recent move from CC3 to CC4, we took the opportunity to enforce some housekeeping of the shared areas. Our new staff folder looks like this:

+ Archive
   + years of unorganised rubbish!
   + ...

+ Staff Resources
   + Art
   + English
   + Geography
   + ...

+ Whole School
   + Admin
   + Curriculum

The Archive folder is read-only, and will remain there for 2 months until departments have copied what they need to their own departmental folders.
All staff have read and write access to the Whole School subfolders.
Only departments members have write access to their own department folders.
No one can write files or folders in the root folder and Whole School and Staff Resources.

So far, it seems to be working well.

[p858snake]

Are you staff in security groups based on what they teach? I woud just start a new drive (read only the last one) and lay it out something like
-Root (Read only)
-- Dept 1 (Dept1 RW, Everyone Else RO)
-- Dept 2 (Dept2 RW, Everyone Else RO)
-- Dept 3 (Dept3 RW, Everyone Else RO)
-- Adminny Stuff
-- etc

The reason I suggest letting other uses read the folders is, if teachers share stuff you don't need to worry about a common space or the likes.

[powdarrmonkey]

Mmm, Sharepoint is one of the options on my list to evaluate... not going to prejudice it though.

MatthewL, p858snake: thanks for your opinions, but I deliberately asked "what do you do", not "what do you think I should do". I want an idea of how the problem has been solved in other schools.

[CESIL]

blimey...it's taken me several years to get certain teachers to save into a shared area...rather than save a copy in their personal area and then give their username and password to anybody wanting a copy...

I am however starting to get them organised a bit and have created individual folders for each teacher that all can read but only they can save to...I am not sure if it is much better but as Little-Miss said at least I can see who is creating what...

[p858snake]

MatthewL, p858snake: thanks for your opinions, but I deliberately asked "what do you do", not "what do you think I should do". I want an idea of how the problem has been solved in other schools.

And I showed a example that worked fairly well in the school I attended, So members opions shouldn't be counted because they don't currently implement it in their place of work (or if they work at all)?.

[powdarrmonkey]

And I showed a example that worked fairly well in the school I attended,

Then you should make that clear. "I woud..." [sic] != "I have experienced and it worked...".

So members opions shouldn't be counted because they don't currently implement it in their place of work (or if they work at all)?.

This is a data gathering exercise and I really, really don't want it to descend into opinion.

I'll take your experience into consideration.