Truman ITS Offers Advice For Protecting Computer Documents

When you create a computer document it’s important to think about what would happen if your document were to be lost or destroyed; do you have a backup? Hard drives fail, laptops fall, flash drives usually don’t survive being washed in the laundry, and people make mistakes and delete the wrong files. Accidents happen. If you have documents that are important to you, then you need to have a back up. Truman provides several places to store your files where they are automatically backed up. We encourage you to use these locations to help protect against loss.

* Files stored on your Y: drive (your personal network storage area) or on your W: drive (your department network storage area) are automatically backed up by Truman Information Technology Services.

* Email on the Exchange server is automatically backed up. Email archives are NOT automatically backed up unless you put the archive file on either the Y: or W: drive. Note: It is possible to setup your email client to move your email from Exchange to only your PC. This is NOT recommended because then your email is not backed up.

* Faculty course materials on the Blackboard system are automatically backed up.

* Faculty materials in the Truman Google Apps for Education system are backed up.

* Staff materials in the Google Apps for Education system are NOT backed up.

If you keep important files on your personal computer hard drive they are NOT automatically backed up. Be sure you regularly copy your personal computer documents to a network drive, an external hard drive, to cloud storage or some other secure storage location to ensure your files are backed up and protected.

If you have questions about storing your documents or on any other campus technology items we encourage you to contact the IT Service Center at 660.785.4544.