Newly improved FileUP allows students and faculty to access files from off campus
By Clare Shreve
Friday, April 3 marked the launch of FileUP, the University's online system that allows students, faculty and staff to access their personal UP files from off campus. As finals week quickly approaches, FileUP will become a valuable resource for students to access final papers, PowerPoints and study guides from any computer.
This was not feasible several years ago with frequent system crashes. FileUP has been problematic for more than three years, with unreliable service, a cluttered appearance and questionable security. But Jenny Walsh, Web and administrative systems director, and her team saw the problems and began investigating it. Now, the system is more reliable, has a cleaner look and is much safer.
The new version of FileUP expands the capabilities of those affiliated with the University to access files, Chief Information Officer Jim Ravelli said.
The goal for FileUP, Walsh said, was to make all of the folders available and not just the U and P drives. The options that Walsh initially looked at when working toward this change were too expensive. But the software she chose in the end was free of charge. The software was free because it is community-developed, rather than through a larger company.
"It's not only more stable, but it's going to save the University some money," Walsh said.
Stability has remained an issue since FileUP first made its debut. During the spring of 2006, the U and P drives were put on a group drive, making them both accessible off campus. This system lasted three years but it provided little help to those who used it. Walsh said the site was going down eight to 10 times a day, and sometimes completely shutting down on Friday nights and on the weekends.
"Most people stopped using it because it wasn't dependable," Walsh said.
But now with the promise of a reliable system, FileUP aims to fix the previous problems. Students and faculty tested the new site before its launch and relayed positive feedback to Walsh and her team.
Andrew Nuxoll, professor of engineering, had problems with the previous version of FileUP, namely the program's inability to download multiple files at once.
"This made some tasks, like downloading a collection of assignments for grading, infeasible," Nuxoll said.
The program was inefficient for many reasons, which caused him and several of his colleagues to stop using FileUP all together. Nuxoll was granted the ability to try out the new system before its official launch. He found that he was able to complete many tasks at once without the site crashing.
"When I beta-tested it, I made several attempts to deliberately tax the server, and it handled that just fine," Nuxoll said.
Michelle Chang, program assistant to the Moreau Center, also had a chance to test the new system because she needed to access files off campus over spring break. She described the new systems as "easy to use" and "very utilitarian."
"It does what we need it to do," Chang said.
The system is more dependable in terms of shutting down but the speed at which it functions still needs work. However, summer promises more time to work out the kinks to speed up the process.
In addition to its reliability, FileUP has a cleaner look with fewer icons cluttering up the screen. Ravelli said the new system closes up a lot of security holes that caused problems in the past.
The new FileUP is not perfect, however, as Nuxoll points out a feature was lost during the transition: the capability to send someone a link to a file on your P drive.
"This was a nice way to send a big file to another person in a semi-private manner without attaching it to an e-mail," Nuxoll said.
With Walsh on the prowl for new and better ways to update the FileUP, there's no doubt that the file-sharing system will continue to be monitored and updated as necessary.
