Spring Into Action – Organize Your Digital Files at Northwestern

Microsoft OneDrive is Northwestern’s primary cloud-based personal file storage and sharing service, available to students, faculty, and staff through Microsoft 365. It allows users to securely store and access files from anywhere.

Guidelines for Use:

• Best for individual work files or documents shared with a small number of collaborators.
• Appropriate for public and non-classified data; higher-sensitivity data may require other services. See the University’s Data Classification Policy to learn more about data classification levels.
• Files are tied to your NetID and deleted when your NetID expires, so plan ahead when leaving the University.

Benefits for organization:

• Automatic version history helps recover older drafts.
• Easy folder structures for personal organization.
• Reduces local storage and desktop clutter by syncing across devices.

What not to store here:

• Department- or team-owned files that need to persist beyond your role or NetID
• Records requiring long-term retention or shared stewardship
• Highly sensitive or regulated data that requires additional controls

Microsoft SharePoint is a team-based document management and collaboration platform within Microsoft 365, designed for departments, labs, and project groups that need shared ownership of files.

Guidelines for use:

• Ideal for ongoing group work, departmental files, or shared resources.
• Supports more structured permissions and auditing than personal storage.
• Preferred over OneDrive for files that need long-term group access.

Benefits for organization:

• Centralized file libraries reduce duplicate documents.
• Clear ownership beyond a single individual.
• Helps teams maintain consistent naming and folder conventions.

What not to store here:

• Personal working files that don’t need shared access
• Temporary drafts or one-off documents are better suited to OneDrive
• Video recordings intended for instructional viewing
  
  
  
  

Microsoft Teams combines chat, meetings, and file collaboration. Files shared in Teams are stored in SharePoint behind the scenes, making them easy to manage within a collaborative workspace.

• Use for active collaboration tied to conversations or meetings.
• Not intended as long-term archival storage on its own.
• Organize channels intentionally to avoid scattered files.

• Keeps conversations and files connected.
• Reduces emailing attachments and version confusion.
• Encourages real-time collaboration and transparency.

• Final or archival versions of important documents without an agreed-upon structure
• Long-term reference materials that should live in a dedicated SharePoint site
• Large non-collaborative files unrelated to ongoing team conversations

Google Drive is part of Northwestern’s Google Workspace and is primarily used by students for collaboration and coursework through @u.northwestern.edu accounts.

• Best for collaborative classwork and student group projects.
• Access to individual student accounts ends after graduation; personal files should be exported, and ownership of organization or group accounts should be transferred.
• Not approved for University data, including, but not limited to research data.

• Real-time co-editing simplifies group work.
• Easy sharing and commenting.
• Encourages cloud-first organization rather than local file storage.

• Files that need to be retained after graduation or account expiration, such as student group or organization-related files
• Regulated, confidential, or sensitive University data
• Official departmental records or research data requiring institutional controls

Research Data Storage Service (RDSS) is the University's dedicated research storage platform designed for collaboration. RDSS is accessed using your Northwestern NetID as a network drive for secure, reliable, and stable research data storage and accommodates files of any size.

• Intended for research data, not everyday documents.
• Ideal for active collaboration within a research group.
• Different zones support varying data sensitivity levels.

• Separates research data from personal or administrative files.
• Files are stored in one easily accessible location that all research group members have access to, rather than scattered across individual computers, preventing file duplication.
• Reduces risk of data loss.

• Course materials, administrative documents, everyday office files or personal data not connected to an approved research project
• Full backups of other active data storage systems, such as Quest Storage
• Data that needs to be retained but is not frequently accessed, such as data associated with published manuscripts

Arch and Dryad are open-access research repositories for publishing and preserving scholarly publications and research datasets produced at Northwestern.

• Intended for finalized, shareable research outputs.
• Not for active file editing or internal collaboration.
• Supports public access and long-term preservation.

• Clearly distinguishes active work from published materials.
• Improves discoverability and citation of research.
• Supports long-term digital preservation.

• Draft manuscripts or works in progress
• Internal-only materials or restricted-access data
• Files that still require editing, review, or version control

Panopto is Northwestern’s cloud-based video capture, hosting, and management platform, integrated with Canvas and available to students, faculty, and staff at no cost. It is used for lecture capture, instructional videos, presentations, and other academic video content.

• Best for teaching, learning, and academic video content, not general file storage.
• Integrated with Canvas, making it the preferred location for course-related recordings.
• Panopto content that is no longer actively viewed is archived after four years of nonuse as part of the University’s storage retention efforts.
• Long-term, non-instructional video files may be better suited for SharePoint or other storage services.

• Centralizes video content separately from documents and datasets.
• Automatically organizes videos by course, folder, or owner.
• Reduces clutter in OneDrive or SharePoint by keeping video files in a purpose-built system.
• Searchable transcripts and captions make video libraries easier to navigate over time.

• Non-instructional videos with no teaching or learning purpose
• Long-term administrative recordings better suited to SharePoint
• Duplicate Zoom recordings that are no longer needed for viewing

Zoom is Northwestern’s web conferencing platform for classes, meetings, and events. It includes the ability to create cloud or local recordings, with cloud recordings often linked to Canvas or Panopto.

• Zoom cloud storage is intended for short-term use only, not long-term file retention.
• Older Zoom cloud recordings are moved to trash and deleted unless downloaded or transferred after one year.
• Recordings you need to keep should be downloaded and uploaded to Panopto or SharePoint.
• Local recording may be appropriate for one-time meetings or personal reference.

• Encourages timely review and cleanup of recordings.
• Helps users intentionally move valuable recordings into permanent, well-organized storage.
• Prevents accumulation of outdated or unused video files in cloud accounts.
• Supports a cleaner separation between live collaboration and long-term content management.

• Recordings you need to keep long term
• Official course content without transferring it to Panopto
• Archived meetings intended for ongoing reference or sharing