Students and faculty at The University of Memphis can catch a glimpse of the more modern appearance, convenient new features and doubled storage space when they uploadfiles to the new UMdrive.
Provided by Xythos Software, Inc., the file-sharing service allows account holdersto upload assignments, group projects and papers, giving students 24-hour access.
Director of the Advanced Learning Center Sandy Schaeffer managed the planning and implementing of the upgrade's nontechnicalaspects. He said the original intent of the service was to give students user-friendly personal storage for their digital files.
"This update is a major revision," he said. "The new interface has new Windows-like features and you can right-click on things."
Schaeffer said because the new design and features are intuitive, students and faculty should be able to take advantageof the upgrade almost instantly.
And in case of confusion, there are wizards that explain the tools, he said.Schaeffer said the upgrades to UMdrive should not affect students' files that have already been uploaded.
"Their personal web space is still there," he said. "You can still make it open to the web or keep it private so you're theonly person who can view it."
Unlike most of the software used on campus, UMdrive is available to everyone,instead of only being accessible to certain departments, said James McMurry, systems administrator who spearheadedthe technical side of the upgrade.
"It kind of touches everybody," he said. "UMdrive is unique because it can be usedby anyone."
McMurry said the service gave users a quota of only 250 megabytes of storage space before the upgrade.
"We doubled that," he said. "It's one of the features we specifically tried to highlight as a part of the upgrade."
This is also the interface's first appearance upgrade since its U of M debut eight years ago.
"We had been talking about it for about a year," Schaeffer said. "It was roughly a six month project."
