Auckland University gives researchers Dropbox access

The University of Auckland has signed a four-year agreement with Dropbox that will give all researchers at the University access to the Dropbox Business (Enterprise) service to support their research efforts.

The university, New Zealand’s largest, has 50 research units, centres and institutes and hosts five of New Zealand’s 10 Centres of Research Excellence, established by the New Zealand government.

Dropbox says its technology is already widely used by individual researchers in the university to store and share their information.

The university’s vice-chancellor Professor Stuart McCutcheon said the university’s research required strong collaboration across different faculties, geographies and industries, and leveraging technology to support internal and external collaboration was critical to maintaining the university’s international reputation for developing world-class research.”

The yniversity also wanted to make sure that all research data and discoveries were maintained and shared securely and with the right levels of access and visibility.

“Safeguarding our researchers’ work is a top priority,” McCuthceon said. “Dropbox meets our security needs while also providing our researchers enhanced levels of governance and control over their data. We’re now able to streamline our investment in Dropbox across our entire research community, so that our researchers can collaborate securely with the rest of the University.”

Dropbox’s county manager for ANZ, Dean Swan, said Dropbox was widely used in universities to support internal or external collaboration because of its ability to operate through ”any device and through any operating system”.

“Dropbox allows institutions like the University of Auckland to integrate with industry tools including Office 365, Blackboard, Turnitin and Notability to give staff and students seamless access to these online platforms,” he said.

Dropbox says its service is used by over 6000 universities, including the University of Sydney.

Sydney Uni university signed a — claimed world-first — deal with Dropbox in November 2017 “for the end-to-end deployment of Dropbox across the entire population of researchers, academics, staff and students.”

The university offers every student a free Dropbox account with 15GB storage and collaboration apps, for the duration of their degree course.

Earlier this year Dropbox reported that use by educational institutions was growing rapidly. “Between 2017 and 2018 the number of students, faculty, and administrators enrolled in Dropbox Education has risen almost 50 percent,” it said.

It also announced new partnerships with education apps, saying these would improve the daily experience of students, faculty, and researchers.

“They’ll have access to Klaxoon, Pronto, and WeVideo along with our existing Dropbox education partners Blackboard, Canvas, and Turnitin,” Dropbox said.