Thing 19 – Catch up week on integrating things

As part of thing 19 we are encouraged to review some of the tools we have covered. I am going to review Google Docs and Dropbox as I am interested in finding a tool to help with a specific problem.

The Problem

We work as a joint library service serving Keele University staff and students as well as our local NHS trusts. Whilst most of our library staff work at the library we have an Outreach team who work across the trusts, using trust networks. Thus sharing documents can become a problem.

The Opportunity

Can cloud-based tools allow us to share documents with colleagues?

Potential Issues

Our NHS organisations provide quite a controlled network environment and this results in a large number of tools, applications and websites being blocked. Users are also prevented from downloading applications to their pcs.

Google Docs

Unfortunately Google docs was blocked by our NHS trusts. Thus it could not be used to share documents.

Dropbox

Dropbox was not blocked as a website on pcs connecting via the trust network. However this tool does rely on a download. Thus our colleagues would not be able to download and install this application. It was also not helpful that the application could only be linked to a c: drive folder rather than a network folder, so it proved not be very helpful to me either.