Starter Kit: Box.com
1TB of free data storage for UVU students
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Overview
You’re a student. You have lots of files from classes as well as team and personal projects. Wouldn’t it be awesome to have all your school stuff located in one place and accessible from any device? Let’s not forget, saving storage space on your personal computer for things like music, photos, and movies, etc.
Did you know that UVU is planning on offering at least 1TB of cloud storage to each individual UVU student. Well, that’s a lot! (Unless you’re a Design student… but that’s beside the point). Thats like having 62 iPhones with 16GB each worth of storage! That’s enough for all your class assignments, projects, and even enough room for your personal photos and music. So I’m going to show you how to free up your personal computer and take advantage of that storage space offered by your university through Box.com.
Introduction
Let’s get right to it. I’ll walk you through the basics of setting up your account and how to use Box.com as a student. Oh, but first let me explain cloud storage:
Basically, Cloud storage is a place where data is stored and managed remotely and made available to people over a network (usually the Internet).
Ok, now that cloud storage is out of the way — Let’s get to it.
Logging in to Your UVU Box Account
Here’s how to log in:
- Go to https://uvu.account.box.com/login
- Enter your school email/username.
- Enter your school password.
- Click Log In.
Creating a New Folder
Folder: You know this. You’ve seen folders before and you know the basic idea: grouping files together. The only difference is that your files will be inside folders in the cloud.
Follow these steps to create a new folder:
- Click the New button and select Folder.
- In the pop-up window that appears, enter the folder name. You can do a few other things here such as inviting others so they can share files to the folder you created (which is great if your working in teams/groups). You can also create folders with different permissions. For example, let’s say you want to share some photos with someone but you don’t want them to download those photos, only view them. In that case, you would set the folder to Viewer.
- Lastly, click create.
Uploading Files
You can do this 1 of 3 ways:
- Simply drag and drop a file into the browser.
- Click on upload and choose a file from computer.
- If you have BoxSync, installed you can just drag and drop it in the BoxSync folder as you would normally move a file on your computer.
Once your files are in the folder, you can access them anywhere. You can find files quickly by using Search tool.
When you’re looking for a particular file, simply type into the search bar at the top of your page. (You can even look up things that contain a certain word or phrase within a file).
There are also filters to help you narrow your search if there happens to be too many results. You can sort by file type, date updated, and owner.
Inviting Collaborators
At the folder level , you can invite others to collaborate inside one or more of your folders as well as give each collaborator access permissions.
(You have complete control, so don’t worry about people being able to see your files outside of the folder you give them access to)
Follow these steps:
- Choose the folder you’d like to share and click the drop-down arrow to the right of the folder name. Then click Invite Collaborators.
- In the pop-up, enter the email addresses of the people you want to share the folder with. Remember to give the invitees access permissions.
- You can send a personal message, then click Send Invite.
An invitation with instructions for joining your folder will be sent to all the invitees.
Shared Links
You can give access to your folder to people who don’t have Box accounts. This is great for quickly sharing files with people who only need to view or download the files.
The recipient will receive a URL link that will give them access to the file or folder without giving access to any other part of your account. They won’t be able to make any changes to your files.
Follow the same steps as the invite collaborators only share a link instead:
Quick note: Click on the cog for more options.
You can set an expiration date, create an access password, or enable/disable downloads of the file.
But what if you don’t want to share everything or limit access to some people in your group. Here is a comprehensive list of permissions:
Conclusion
I hope you learned some basics of navigating Box.com. Now, these are the basics of signing up for and using Box’s basic features. There are many things which I have not covered but this will get you up and running.
To end, here are a few more things to help you as you move into Box.
You do have more power and control with things like account settings, file commenting, assigning tasks, and version control.
- Edit your account, sharing, security, profile settings, etc.
- Adding comments to a file or creating a task.
- Version Control
Not only will the Box account will help free up some space from your computer, it will help you be more proficient and organized. Box will help you collaborate easier, share files quicker, and access those files from anywhere. So get ready, once the University grants access, do it and go get your 1TB of free cloud storage simply because you are a student at Utah Valley University.
Also, for other tutorials check out my fellow design student’s guides:
https://medium.com/@cadendamiano/remote-work-masterclass-for-uvu-students-3e8b88dc7637
Camron Sackett is a student in the Digital Media program at Utah Valley University, Orem Utah, studying Interaction & Design. This article relates to UVU Box Onboarding in the DGM 2271 course and is representative of the skills learned.
