Now, If I have some stuff, and I can't decide where to put it, do I keep it in My Drive, or do I put it in a shared drive?
Well, if you have to ask, use a shared drive. If you leave the district at some point, your account will be deactivated and unless you put those files in a shared drive, everyone you shared with will lose access.
To move files and folders, click the little three-dot menu, click organize, then Move.
This little window pops up, you can click All Locations, and you should be able to move things wherever you want.
How do I share things?
When you have something open in Google Drive, you can click the Share button with the little lock, in the top right to bring up the sharing menu.
When looking at a list of stuff you can click the little button to the right that looks like a person with a plus sign.
There are a few more ways to get there as well, but these are the easy ones.
Once you do that, it will bring up a screen like this.
We can see here we have options to add People and Groups, we can see who has access already, and we can change what’s called “General Access”.
Let’s go ahead and look at the section at the bottom that says “General Access” first.
There are three options here.
One is “Restricted”. This is the default. It means only the people on the “People with access” list can get to this file.
The second option, "Nobody", can be ignored. It only exists for a specific technical reason that isn't worth getting into. It won't unshare anything, it just doesn't add anyone.
The third option is “Anyone with the link. This is dangerous, but also pretty useful. Say you have an empty form that changes often, and you want to post a link to it on the website. If you change this to “Anyone with the link” you can click the "Copy Link" button, and you're all set. Viewers do not need to even have a Google account to view the document. Do not ever use this option on a document that has sensitive data, or even data that is questionable but should probably stay within philomath. Remember, if anyone, even a hacker in Russia or a student at another school, if anyone finds or guesses the link they will be able to view that document or worse, everything inside the folder.
On to regular old sharing...
Here in this box at the top we can start typing to share this document with individual people, but sometimes there’s a better option.
Instead of sharing with a bunch of random individuals, use the groups!
Say we want to share this with a bunch of PES Teachers? Well, we can share it with the PES Teachers group and they will all have access.
The groups get pretty darn specific too.
How about only PHS Special Education case managers?
Now that we know WHO we want to share this with, we can choose a role for them.
Viewers can generally view or download the item, or everything in the folder.
Commenters can view and leave comments, but cannot change or delete anything. You probably won't use that one much.
Editors can change things, delete things, and upload things (if you shared a folder)
Do not share district stuff with your personal Google account!
Don't ask other people in the district to share district stuff with your personal account.
Don't share district stuff with other district people's personal accounts.
This is NOT a best practice, it is expressly prohibited.
Your district account has a team of people working to ensure it is safe. Your personal account does not, and it is far more likely to get compromised.
Every single person in this room has had more than one of their personal passwords leaked because there was a data breach, and every single person in this room has used the same password (or a very similar password) for more than one thing at least once.
Some examples of places that were hacked in the past few years, Advance auto parts, Duolingo, Doordash, Twitter, Robinhood, AT&T, Scholastic, Hot Topic, Auto Trader, Detla Dental, Oregon department of transportation, the federal department of energy.
So if your Pinterest password is leaked by hackers, and it's the same as your GMail, and you don't have two-factor authentication turned on, guess what happens?
If a hacker gets ahold of sensitive student info in your *District* account, the *district* is liable. Who do you think is financially and/or criminally liable if they get that info from your personal account? Who is the insurance company going to come after if you knowingly broke the rules? The average cybersecurity incident costs something like two million dollars. It's not worth the risk.
OK so when sharing stuff, what are the "Good" ideas?
So you're about to share a thing...
Take a deep breath. Inhale, exhale. Gusfraba. What is this document? Who needs to see it?
Use Traffic Light Protocol. Apply the label that makes the most sense. No one's expecting perfection here, but I'd argue you don't want to apply TLP Clear to student medical records, right?
Likewise, if you're going to share a document and you see it's TLP: Red, take an extra couple seconds to look at what's in the document and make sure whatever you're about to do is a good idea.
Sometimes it helps to work backwards. Is there anyone who absolutely should NOT have access to this? Should the custodians have access to IEPs? No? So that’s a good starting point, you would not want to share a folder full of IEPs with “All Staff”. Keep going from there to narrow it down.
Remember, you don't always have to share via Google Drive. Say you're sending a form or a report, maybe to a parent. Something where they really only need one-time access. Instead of ending up with a messy web of permissions or turning on "Anyone with the link", just save the file to your computer and send it as an email attachment.
Use the shared drives if it makes sense. That's an easy shortcut. Say a bunch of PES Teachers need this file. Drop it in the PES Teachers Drive. Done. Usually you'll want to put it in a folder too and name it something relevant, but you get the idea.
When picking who to share with, use groups instead of long lists of random people. Remember you can share with multiple groups. If everyone you need to share with is either a teacher or a counselor at one school, share with the Teachers and Counselors groups instead of typing out a dozen separate names.
If someone only needs to view a document, make them a viewer, not an editor.
Instead of sharing individual files, Make a folder, name it something really conspicuous like "Share with XYZ" and put the files in there. That will make it really obvious who has access.
On that note, check who a folder is shared with by clicking the share button before you put stuff in there. Remember that if a folder is shared with someone, everything in that folder, including folders in folders in folders, is also shared with them.
If you have an account with the district, keep all your district stuff in it. Keep your personal and work stuff separate, to the degree that you can.
And finally, use your best judgement. You guys are smart, in fact we are in much better shape than many districts precisely because we DO pay attention and we DO avoid making bad decisions. We just need to make sure that as we become more dependent on Google and the cloud, that we continue to maintain that track record.