Changes to Shared Drives at ACC
Austin Community College District (ACC) is updating its Shared Drive service to better manage storage and ensure business continuity. The change allows the College to prevent data and storage from accumulating after students graduate or leave ACC.
What is changing?
Students will no longer be able to create shared drives. However, faculty and staff will continue to be able to create Shared Drives and can invite students to participate. Faculty advisors can also create Shared Drives for student organizations, ensuring that collaborative efforts are still supported.
Although students will lose the ability to create new Shared Drives, they can still share files and collaborate using their personal Google Drive (My Drive). Existing Shared Drives shared with students will also remain accessible for collaboration.
With the intention to continue to improve the security and performance of our infrastructure, the student-shared drives (not personal drives) themselves will be removed entirely. More information on that will be coming in the near future.
These changes safeguard our active students attending ACC so they do not lose access to their data.
Questions and Answers
What changes are being made to Student Shared Drives?
Due to storage limitations, Shared Drives will be limited to faculty and staff starting December 15, 2024. Students will no longer be able to create new Shared Drives but can access existing ones to retrieve their data.
This policy helps eliminate orphaned data created when students leave ACC. As students graduate and their accounts are deleted, their Shared Drives become inactive. Removing student access to create Shared Drives will prevent unwanted data in our domain.
Can students still collaborate in our Google space?
Yes, students can still collaborate by sharing files from their personal My Drives and participating in Shared Drives previously shared with them by faculty and staff.
What should students do with their data?
Students should remove personal files from any Shared Drives they manage by May 15, 2025, as the data will become unavailable after this date (more information forthcoming early Spring 2025).
ACC uses Google Workspace for Education. Google for Education is a suite of online software applications that allows ACC students, faculty, and staff to share information and ideas using Google’s communication, collaboration, and publishing tools. Students, faculty, and staff can create and share documents, spreadsheets, and calendar events, as well as communicate using Gmail, chat, and video messaging.
Gmail – ACCMail is the official form of communication between ACC administration and students as well as faculty and staff. Learn More.
Google Calendar – Organize your schedule, and keep a personal calendar to coordinate meetings or schedule events. Shareable calendars integrate with Gmail, Drive, Sites, and Chat. Learn more.
Google Drive – Create, share, and collaborate on documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. Learn more.
Google Meet – Allows users to video conference. Learn More.
Google Chat– Provides the ability to communicate with other Google users through chat or voice. Learn more.
Google Sites – Create websites using simple tools, and publish them with Google. Learn more.
Google Groups – Create and participate in online forums and email-based groups with a rich experience for community conversations. Learn more.
Training and Help
- Google Drive Help Center
- Google Calendar Help Center
- Google Chat Help Center
- Google Groups Help Center