Box Developer Community Spotlight with Mark Reynolds
Welcome to the first Box Developer Community Spotlight! The community itself is focused on supporting developers working with our technical solutions to bring the power of Box to their systems. It’s also about sharing experiences and tips and tricks on how to maximize the Box Platform.
Olga: Let’s hear from our amazing community champion is Mark Reynolds, Principle Application Services Specialist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Mark currently holds a top position on our Global Leaderboard for the Box Developer Community!
Mark: I’m Mark with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where I am the owner and operations lead for the Canvas@Illinois service. Prior to working with Canvas and associated technologies, I ran Illinois Compass, our re-branded Blackboard Learn service, and served as a Blackboard MVP. The U of I has been using Box storage for quite a few years as our enterprise storage solution. I’ve heard that we have over 4PB in Box, so I’m glad to see all the technicians and engineers here that keep the boilers stoked for us!
O: Could you highlight your personal interests, hobbies?
M: In my personal time I enjoy visiting with my granddaughters, riding my motorcycle, cooking and walking with my wife of 36 years, attending casinos, fairs and festivals, poker (video or otherwise), playing video games (Xbox Rules!!!) and designing new and interesting (and occasionally useful) objects for 3d printing.
O: I heard you love data and work a lot with custom reporting; can you share some more details on that?
M: Data doesn’t take sides…it simply “is”. The data that I capture through the use of the Canvas service (and others) allows me to prove that a student did (or, in some cases, do not) perform a task that in the LMS which may otherwise be ambiguous. Data can also drive the adoption of new features, funding, contracts and overall student/faculty success.
O: You mentioned Canvas service for your campus; can you share some more insights about how it works, what the purpose is, and how many users there are?
M: Canvas is a “next general digital learning environment”, or learning management system (LMS), used to deliver online instruction and information to learners. It’s really a lot bigger than that as it’s fully extensible, allowing you to incorporate hundreds of different LTI tools (learning tools interoperability) and customize the experience for your institution(s). It really goes beyond “online learning”.
O: Can you share with us the scope of your daily tasks?
M: My day involves a fair bit of work with colleagues, supporting our college departments and their staff/faculty, not to mention our thousands of students. I handle general support issues, report on LMS usage and student activity, review and process requests for LTI integration and assist my colleagues with various requests against the Canvas environment. I also manage our relationship with Instructure, reviewing new features and release notes, beta testing new products and assisting with overall case support. I also design and develop solutions (mainly with Python) for our Operations group so that we can make the most of Canvas and get the data in and out of it as needed in usable format.
O: How long have you been working at the U of I? How long has your experience been with Box Solutions?
M: I’ve been at the U of I just over 11 years. Box was chosen years ago to replace our standard SMB service(s) for general storage. I’ve been building solutions against the Box API for about the last 5 years.
O: How many team members (technicians and engineers) are there at U of I?
M: There are about 200 employees in Technology Services that build and support solutions for our campus. We are a highly technical unit, allowing us to deliver the enterprise services needed to support our higher-education institution and missions.
O: Managing 4PB seems like a lot of data, how do you handle so much information?
M: I’m not a part of the team that manages Box, but in my experience, it pretty much manages itself. Box simply “works”.
O: Can you shed some light on some details of your coding or automation experience with Box Platform?
M: I’ve been developing Pythonic solutions against the Box API for a number of years now. While my code is simple, the Box API (and SDK) allow me to perform complicated tasks against our Box enterprise. I’ve got some of my work added to Github and can be reviewed here: reynlds-illinois/box-integration (github.com).
O: What are some best practises for ensuring data security and compliance when utilizing the Box Platform in an educational environment?
M: Box is the only FERPA and HIPAA certified storage solution for our campus. As such we can store student AND health data within it. Box provides all the controls necessary to manage access.
O: What are some specific ways in which the Box Platform has improved your day-to-day work efficiency and effectiveness?
M: General availability of Box across a wide variety of platforms and devices, the ability to work on document “live” with my colleagues, sharing files/folders to others outside our institution, and in some instances using Box as an FTP and WEB service. I’ve also taken advantage of the large file sizes (Canvas course archives) and high-level of redundancy and availability of the platform.
O: Is there any specific feature or functionality within Box that you couldn’t live without?
M: Box Sync and Box API are the two that I use (almost) daily! However, I’m looking closer at Box Canvas since it popped up in my global menu.
O: Thank you, Mark, for sharing your rich experiences and insights about higher education and the online learning space! It’s great to hear that Box helps you and your team with your day-to-day duties. Also, thank you for being an active member of our Box Developer Community. We’d love to also create a thriving Box online education space, so there is still a lot we can learn from each other!
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Cheers! ☀️
