Departmental Shared Directory : Policies : CAS Computing Services : University of Vermont

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CAS Computing Services

Departmental Shared Directories

Policy Statement

In order to protect departmental historical data, preserve departmental efficiency and to allow for smooth personnel changes, the College of Arts and Sciences requires all academic departments and programs to establish and utilize a departmental shared directory on the CAMPUS Active Directory server cluster.

Reason for the Policy

In the past, departments were left to their own devices regarding the backup, conveyance, and preservation of information pertaining to departmental business. This left important and sensitive material exposed to loss from failure, accidental deletion, or disaster.
Without a standard, secure and regularly backed-up location for department electronic files, the CAS Computing Services staff cannot efficiently retrieve department files from a departing department administrator's personal files. This results in unnecessary delays in transitions to new department administrative personnel and jeopardizes complete transfer of department files to a new location.
Recently the University has established an institution-wide Microsoft Active Directory domain called CAMPUS that encourages the storage of departmental files in a "shared directory" on the network. The Active Directory domain gives us the following advantages:

Central location for storage
By storing files in a central location, files are not spread across multiple local hard drives, thus providing security, and multiple-copy control. Because all departmental files are in a secure shared location, there's no need to transfer anything out of a departing employee's personal file space.
A high level of security
The ability to bestow or deny access to anything from the entire directory down to a particular file and a particular person can be delegated to one or more people within the department.
The server cluster itself is protected from disaster by all conceivable means available: fire protection, multiple locations, reliable and frequent backup, version control down to individual files, redundant power, network and climate control.
Allows us to capitalize on other technologies
If a department has a shared directory, then such things as network scanning using the departmental copier, deployment of the Documentum document handling system, or RightFax fax service become possible.

Applicability of the Policy

This policy applies to all academic departments and programs within the College of Arts and Sciences.

Policy Elaboration

Every department or program will have a shared directory.
Management of that directory will be delegated to one or more departmental employees.
CAS Computing Services will also have access in order to provide support and for an additional layer of security.
All files pertaining to departmental business will be stored in the departmental shared directory.
Departments will have the freedom of organizing and securing their own shared directory as they see fit. However, we encourage the following:
- Departments should organize files by business procedure, subject area or any of the more obvious methods that would make retrieving files as easy as possible for future staff.
- Departments should document their file system, thereby providing a training tool for future staff and administrators.
- Departments will ensure that sensitive material is protected from inappropriate access.
CAS Computing Services will provide training and support on implementing security.

Procedures

Establishing a shared directory
CAS Departments will do the following:
- Determine whether the department already has a shared directory or not
- If they already have a directory, the department will gain access to that directory, obtain training on how to manage it, and will then begin the process of creating a logical filing protocol for that directory.
- If a department does not have a shared directory, they should request one through CAS Computing Services. The default disk quota for a shared directory is 5 gigabytes. If a department requires more disk space than that, we will arrange to increase the quota to meet their needs.
Training on security and group management
CAS Computing Services will train one or more people in the department on group management, file organization and permissions handling.
We expect those trained to then pass on their training to their replacements as part of their new employee orientation.

Contacts

CAS Computing Services 656-7971 or a-s.computing@uvm.edu