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bDrive vs. Box vs. CalShare vs. bCourses Projects: What's the best choice for online collaboration?

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1.0 - Authored on 2015-04-28 by Adam Zukauckas

bDrive vs. Box vs. CalShare vs. bCourses Projects: What's the best choice for online collaboration?

 
 

 

The chart below gives a high-level comparison of the four major campus-supported options for collaboration at UC Berkeley.

This chart is intended only as guidance for which tool is best suited to a particular purpose. Depending on what you're trying to do, each of the tools may be either a good or a bad choice for that purpose. There is no one tool that is the best choice for every person and project.

We strongly encourage you to experiment with multiple tools before making a selection, especially for larger or longer-term projects. You might want to also consider a hybrid approach, using CalShare for a project dashboard, and embedding a view of your Box file repository there.

The "updated" date of this knowledge base article, shown below, shows when this guidance was last updated. Please check back here for updated and expanded guidance.

Tools for hosting websites and for software developers are also available.

 

bDrive

Box

CalShare

bCourses Project Sites

Best for

  • Complex sites and business needs
  • Large, long-term projects
  • Sensitive data (see below for details)
  • Faculty, students already familiar with bCourses
  • Instruction and training-related projects

Key capabilities

  • Project/site dashboards
  • Large set of tools and capabilities
  • Integration with Microsoft Office
  • Site dashboard
  • Wiki
  • Discussions

Other useful features

  • Self-service creation of project sites coming Spring 2015.

Price

Free to all faculty, staff, students

Free to all faculty, staff, students

Monthly recharge fee

Free to all faculty and staff

Storage limits

Unlimited

Unlimited

1GB included, more can be purchased

2GB

Off-campus collaboration

Easily collaborate with all other Google users, including people with free Google accounts.

Can also make selected files viewable by anyone on the Internet.

Easily collaborate with all other Box users, including people with free Box accounts.

Can also make selected files viewable by anyone on the Internet.

Requires CalNet Guest account, or ADFS integration with outside collaborator's organization.

Can also make selected files viewable by anyone on the Internet.

Requires CalNet Guest account.

Security

  • Hosted off campus
  • Approved for MSSEI Level 1 data only
  • Data is encrypted in transit and at rest
  • Hosted off campus
  • Approved for MSSEI Level 1 data only
  • Data is encrypted in transit and at rest
  • Hosted on campus
  • Approved for MSSEI Level 2 data
  • Data is encrypted in transit
  • Hosted off campus
  • Approved for MSSEI Level 1 data only
  • Data is encrypted in transit

More questions?

Knowledge basebConnected support

Knowledge Base; Box support

CalShare support

bCourses support