Student storage site receives huge updates

Clayton Eberly
Wed, 23 Sep 2015 11:56:46 +0000
Area, Campus, box.com, buckeye box, BuckeyeBox, file sharing, new benefits, ohio state

BuckeyeBox launched at Ohio State in the fall of 2013, but the free online storage device for OSU students is now offering unlimited storage and increased file size.

“We have moved from 50 gigabytes of storage per user and a file size upload limit of five gigabytes, to unlimited storage and 15 gigabytes file upload size,” said Katharine Keune, Office of the Chief Information Officer senior director of marketing, communication and training.

BuckeyeBox can be used to store documents, share files, collaborations and more.

The site, which fosters file sharing and collaboration, is an extension of the already existing Box website, which can be used by anyone. These updates, however, are exclusive to BuckeyeBox.

OSU students are getting the free BuckeyeBox service with more benefits than the paid service from Box, said Keune.

“A personal Box account only provides 10 gigabytes of storage and 250 megabytes file upload for free,” Keune said. “Additional storage and upload costs $10 per month.”

Patricia Woellert, a third-year in nursing, said she has never heard of BuckeyeBox but thinks it might be worth trying out.

“My clinical group had to create a common medicine list for our unit of the OSU hospital that contained almost 200 meds,” Woellert said. “It would have been nice to use something like BuckeyeBox where we could all help fill it out on our own time and save it.”

Woellert said she is surprised that she hadn’t heard about BuckeyeBox earlier because it seems like something that most students would be interested in using.

Cassidy Hafner, a third-year in accounting, said she also believes BuckeyeBox would be a helpful tool.

“All of my business classes try to emphasize group work, and it can be hard to coordinate schedules with everyone,” Hafner said. “A single file to share together online would be easier for when we can’t meet up.”

The OCIO press release provides a three-step guide showing how to activate a BuckeyeBox account. It is synced with the OSU single sign-on authentication systems, so the username and password are the same as Carmen and Buckeyelink.

Woellert and Hafner both said that they currently use different cloud-like programs that are similar to BuckeyeBox and that they are happy with them.

“I always use Google Drive and Google Docs,” Hafner said. “It syncs with my Gmail account, and I am automatically logged in rather than having to type in my school username and password on another site.”

Woellert said the computers she uses at the OSU hospital aren’t all updated, so they’re unable to use

Google Docs.

“I like to use OneDrive through Microsoft,” Woellert said. “Anytime someone sends me an email, I can save it to OneDrive directly from that message.”

Keune said that Microsoft OneDrive is an approved OSU service for student work and is a popular alternative to BuckeyeBox along with Dropbox.

Woellert said she might have used BuckeyeBox if she had known more about it when she came to OSU.

“The fact that it’s existed since I was a freshman is shocking,” said Woellert. “I have never heard of it until now.”

Woellert and Hafner each said they think there should be more advertising of BuckeyeBox so that students can become familiar with it.

“People would know about it more if professors required students to use it for class,” Hafner said. “They could put a syllabus or a couple assignments on it.”

With the start of the new semester, Keune said the new changes and updates have already created an increase in activity on BuckeyeBox.

More information can be found at the BuckeyeBox website.