The Kenyon network has many important features that allow you to manage and store information efficiently and share information with others easily. This page is a short description of some of those features you should be aware of as you begin to work in the Kenyon computing environment.

Using Network Drives

One the primary functions of Kenyon's network is to store your files. You already know how to save your files on your personal computer's hard drive or on a diskette using the A: drive. A personal computer connected to the network treats files on network drives as if the files were stored on one of its local disk drives, making it very easy to save and move your files from one drive or directory to another, whether they are local or on the network. There are two important differences, however, in the way files on a network drive are stored and accessed:

1. The files are not actually stored on a drive directly attached to your computer. Instead they are "served" to your computer on demand from another computer called a fileserver, which is a computer with a very large hard drive, able to store much more information than can otherwise be stored on your personal computer. They can also serve you software applications (programs) from the network so that you don't have to install the programs on your local computer, which has limited space and memory. Since all computers on the network are connected to the fileserver, it is possible to share files and programs among computers. 
2. A second critical difference is that each user has access to only certain storage areas on the network drives. Your access permissions are generally determined by your particular user category (student, faculty or staff). For example, departmental folders (P:\(dept) are accessible only to the members of that department. Class (or course) folders (P:\class\dept... and P:\data\dept...) are accessible only to the faculty members and enrolled students. Personal folders (H:) are accessible only to the individual user.

Network drives are typically labeled with letters of the alphabet starting with G: (to prevent duplication of a personal computer's A:,B:,C:,D:,E: or F: drive).

There are two important advantages to storing your files on one of the network fileservers instead of on your local hard drive.

1. Network drives are backed up nightly. If you lose or accidentally delete a file, it can be restored as long as it existed intact on the network before the last nightly backup. To recover your file. you can place a file restore request by calling the HelpLine at 740/427-5700.
2. The network drives are available from any networked computer on campus. If your personal computer develops operational problems, you can still access your files on the network drives from another networked computer, such as a public lab computer.

Note: If you attempt to transfer a virus-infected file to a network drive (H: or P:), it will automatically be deleted by the anti-virus software that is installed on all network drives. So remember to always keep a backup copy of whatever you transfer to the network. The system will not notify you that it has deleted the virus-infected file.

H: Drive - Personal Accounts

Each individual user has a personal storage area (folder) on an H: drive, which may reside on one of three file servers. Students are on rhine.kenyon.edu; faculty and staff are now on tiber.kenyon.edu.

H: drives are secure storage areas to which an individual alone has access. When you log into the network, you are automatically placed in your H: drive. All personal files should be saved on your H: drive where your files are backed up nightly. Other subfolders can be created to organize your files. You can access your files on your H: drive from any networked computer on campus, including public labs and student residential network connections.

The identification of a particular user's personal account might look something like this to the user:
username$ on ‘Tiber'(H) if you are staff or faculty
OR
\\rhine.kenyon.edu\username$ on 'Rhine'(H) if you are a student

G: Drive - Network Software on potomac.kenyon.edu\software\

This drive holds many kinds of software, many of which are available only in public or departmental labs and are used by departments for their courses. As mentioned earlier, these applications are not stored locally on your personal computer's C: drive but are served to your computer on demand from a fileserver.
Note: Many of the standard network applications, such as MS-Office, have been installed locally on most College computers for better performance.

O: Drive - Shared Departmental Storage Areas on vistula.kenyon.edu

Each department on the O: drive has its own folder (example: dept on 'Vistula' (O:)\...) where dept represents the name of the department, such as Biology on 'Vistula' (O:). This allows for a space in which files that need to be accessed by all in a department (but none outside it) can be kept.

It is also possible to set up a folder that allows certain individuals to regularly share files (but not necessarily an entire department). This type of folder (called a workgroup folder) can be used to share files with students or with members of several departments involved in special projects. Workgroup folders can be requested by calling the HelpLine at 5700.

P: Drive - Public Storage on potomac.kenyon.edu

The P: drive is available for public sharing of files. It is also used for academic course groups who share files with each other. There are also academic class or course folders: (P:\class\dept\coursename\ and P:\data\dept\coursename....) that are available for use by faculty and course-enrolled students. The P: drive also contains student organization accounts, which are accessible to the officers of each student group.

P:\Temp\ folder - Public Temporary Storage
The P:\Temp\ folder is a public temporary storage space available to any Kenyon user for the purpose of sharing or exchanging files on a one-time basis.

The P:\Temp folder is NOT secure space! Anyone with a network account has full access to every file in the P:\Temp\ folder and all subfolders within it, with privileges to edit or delete any files at any time. Any user can create a subfolder under P:\Temp in which to temporarily store files to be exchanged. To maintain available disk space on P:\Temp\, files are deleted by the system one week after being moved there, so your files are always at risk.
Note: If you attempt to transfer a virus-infected file to a P: or H: network drive folder, it will be deleted by anti-virus software that is set up on all network drives. The system will not notify you that it has deleted the virus-infected file. So remember to always keep a backup copy of whatever you transfer to P:\Temp\.

Accounts and Quotas on the Network

Network Accounts and Quotas

1. Network accounts:
   • Kenyon faculty, staff and student accounts are created through an automatic process when an employee begins work or a student enrolls at Kenyon.
   • Special student accounts are available for those individuals who may take only a course or two at Kenyon. This type of account is valid only for the time period of the course and is used for the special student to communicate with the professor. It can be extended by the Registrar's office if re-enrolling in another course.
   • Affiliated scholaraccounts are created for individuals to whom Kenyon has decided to give "affiliated scholar" status. It is valid for one year but can be extended by the Registrar's office.
2. Network account quotas:
   • Faculty H: drive accounts , affiliated scholar accounts and adjunct instructors reside on the tiber.kenyon.edu server, with quotas of 250MB. Those requiring higher quotas will be accommodated as long as drive space is available.
   • Staff H: drive accounts also reside on the tiber.kenyon.edu server, with quotas of 250MB. Those requiring higher quotas will be accommodated as long as drive space is available. Summer group guest accounts (on tiber) have 50MB.
   • Student H: drive accounts and special student accounts reside on the rhine.kenyon.edu server, with quotas of 300MB.
   • Requests for a student organization or special project network account on the P: drive are made in person with the Director of Student Activities & Organizations at the Student Affairs Center (SAC). Those requests are then sent by Student Activities directly to the LBIS systems manager to process. Students will be notified by the systems manager when the account has been created. Student organization or special project accounts have a 100 MB quota.
   • To check your quota and space usage:
     Using a Windows computer, your quota and space usage can be determined by opening Windows Explorer and right-clicking on your H: drive in the list in the left column. Then left-click on Properties in the drop-down menu. Your H: drive quota and usage will be displayed in the window that appears. If you are a Mac OS X user , you will have to go to a Windows workstation in a public lab to check your quota as above.

     To recover space on your H: drive: You must either delete or download files from your account. You can download the files to a CD for long-term storage. Contact the HelpLine at 5700 for more information. To delete files using a Windows computer, use the My Computer or Windows Explorer utilites. Mac users cannot delete files using their Macs once their H: drive becomes full because it locks up access to the files. They must go to a Windows workstation in a public lab to access and delete their files to gain space in their account.

   • Applying for an increase in quota: Faculty and staff requiring an increased quota should contact the HelpLine. Students who demonstrate a need for more quota because of a class project or part-time employment may request an increase through the faculty member or Kenyon supervisor who is responsible. That person should email the HelpLine requesting an increased quota on behalf of the student, and the HelpLine will forward the request to the LBIS systems manager. Student increases will remain in effect until the end of the project or (at the latest) the end of the academic year. A new request must be filed if the increased quota is needed during the next academic year.

Email Accounts and Quotas

• Student & Employee Email Accounts & Quotas:
  Email accounts are created for Kenyon faculty, staff and students when they are first employed or enrolled at Kenyon. Special student accounts and affiliated scholar accounts are created upon request and can be extended by the Registrar's office. Email quotas are 500 MB for faculty and staff and 250 MB for students. 
• Requests for a student organization or special project email account are made in person with the Director of Student Activities & Organizations at the Student Affairs Center (SAC). Those requests are then sent by Student Activities directly to the LBIS systems manager to process. Students will be notified by the systems manager when the account has been created. Student organization or special project accounts have a 15 MB quota.
• Alumni Email Accounts & Quotas:
  
  
  • Senior graduates can keep their email accounts for one year after graduation. These accounts do not require a Kenyon network login to access their Kenyon email account. These accounts have a 250MB quota. After one year these senior graduate accounts will be terminated. 
  • Alumni who are graduates beyond the first year can apply to alumni.kenyon.edu to obtain an email forwarding service through Kenyon's Alumni Association. Using the alumni email forwarding service is a way to maintain contact with important people your life, both now and in the future. It offers a permanent Kenyon email address, one that you can confidently give to people with whom you want to keep in touch, no matter where you may move. To take advantage of this forwarding service:
    • First, register as a new user with the Kenyon Alumni Association Online Directory. Once you have done so, you will find instructions for setting up email forwarding. The link to the Welcome Page is at: https://alumni.kenyon,edu/
      If you are a new user, click the New User Registration button. If you need assistance, (e.g., if you no longer have your identification number, which is needed to login), then click the Need Assistance button.
    • Second, set up your alumni email forwarding account by setting up your Kenyon alumni email address and your Internet email forwarding address. For example, studentX sets up her permanent Kenyon email address to be studentX2003@alumni.kenyon.edu. She sets her Internet email forwarding address to be her Yahoo account at Xstudent@yahoo.com. 
• Employees who leave Kenyon automatically will have their email account extended for 90 days after ending employment. At the end of that time they can request to have their incoming Kenyon email forwarded to an Internet email account for an extra 90 days by sending an email request to the HelpLine at helpline@kenyon.edu. It should contain the following information: full name, Kenyon username, new Internet email address, US mail address, and phone number. At the end of the second 90 days, Kenyon's re-routing service will terminate. 
• Exceeded Email Account Quotas:
  You will be notified by the system when you are very close to your email quota. When you first exceed your quota with an incoming message, you will receive a notice that you are over quota. The next incoming message after that will not be deliverable to you but will "bounce" back to the sender until you delete or download messages to make more storage space available. Email messages with image file attachments are particularly large and should be the first to be deleted (or downloaded) in order to obtain more space quickly.

  To learn how to reduce your email account space, see Mailbox Quota Management at http://lbis.kenyon.edu/mail/emailtips/archive.htm

  To archive email messages you want to keep, see Archiving Email Messages to Other Media at http://lbis.kenyon.edu/email/emailtips/archive.htm 

• Cleanbox procedure: LBIS has instituted an email maintenance procedure called Cleanbox that is designed to keep students' mailboxes free of old and unwanted email messages. A large number of Inbox messages will cause slow logins and exceeded quotas as well as decrease mail server efficiency, which adversely affects other users with accounts on the mail server.

  The Cleanbox procedure works by automatically deleting any message in the Inbox that is older than 120 days. This limit counts from the day that a message arrives in the Inbox, not from the date that may appear in the message itself. The Cleanbox procedure runs daily at 4:00 am.

  Cleanbox is used on all student email accounts (both on and off campus), student organization and senior graduate registry accounts. Employees who want help managing their email messages can also request that Cleanbox be applied to their accounts by calling the HelpLine at 5700.

  If there are messages in the Inbox that you would like to save, they must be moved from the Inbox to other folders before the 120-day deadline. Any folder other than the Inbox will suffice, as Cleanbox works only with the Inbox. It's a good idea to establish the habit of moving messages you've read to other folders as soon as they are read.

  Off-campus students are not exempted from Cleanbox. Students abroad who cannot access their account for more than 120 days can set their account to automatically forward messages to a non-Kenyon account so that they will not be lost. To forward incoming Kenyon email to another email address:

  • In your web browser type: webmail.kenyon.edu. Click Set Account Options.
  • Select your student mail server and login with your username and password.
  • At the bottom of the gray screen that appears, checkmark Don't deliver to this mailbox.
  • Enter in the Forward mail to field: your non-Kenyon email address. Click the Apply button.
  • Your new incoming Kenyon mail will now be forwarded to your non-Kenyon address. (Mail already in the Inbox is not forwarded). 
• Quota on email messages sent to public dis lists. There is a 50KB quota on email messages sent out to any public dis list. Anything larger will not be sent, and you will have it bounced back with an error message stating "too large." Avoid sending large images in messages to a dis list because it can easily exceed the quota limit.

Access Permissions on Folders and Files

Each folder and file on the network is assigned certain access permissions, which grant designated users the ability to read, create, edit, and delete. The permissions can also enable the user to see the list of folder contents. If a particular file is a program, they can allow the user to run or "execute" the program. Some of names of access permissions include: Full Control, Read, Write (create files), Modify (edit files), Read & Execute (run programs), Delete,and List Folder Contents.To view the access permissions granted for a particular folder or file, the My Computer or Windows Explorer file management utilities on Windows computers can be used. Instructions for managing access permissions is in
Setting Access Permissions on Folders and Files at: http://lbis.kenyon.edu/help/ntnetwork/accesspermissions.htm

File Ownership on the Network Drives

All files and directories stored on the network drives, regardless of their location, are recorded with the username of the individual who created the file. The creator of a file is considered the Owner of the file or directory. This is also true of files stored on any networked computer, whether a personal computer or a public lab computer.

Sharing Files on the Network

File sharing via the network enables the exchange of work between students and faculty and among members of departments, as long as those users have permission to access the files. There are several ways of sharing files across the network.

1. A simple way to share files with others is by attaching the file to an email message and sending it. Instructions for attaching files to email sent from WebMail, Mozilla/thunderbird or Netscape Messenger can be found in their respective Help files. You may also contact the HelpLine (at 5700) for instructions. 
2. You can also share your files on a one-time basis with other Kenyon users by creating a folder under the P:\Temp\ folder, copying your file there, and notifying the receiver to retrieve it as quickly as possible. Important Note: The P:\Temp drive is NOT a secure storage area because anyone can edit or delete files that reside there. Files on P:\temp are deleted by the system one week after being placed there. Be sure to save a backup copy of your files before transferring to P:\Temp. 
3. An entire academic or administrative department can share files on a regular basis through departmental folders on their departmental O: drive. Many departments also have workgroup folders set up there for special projects. 
4. Faculty members can also share files with students in a class directory under P:\class\dept\coursename\...(read+write) or P:\data\dept\coursename\... (read-only).

User Profiles on the Network

A user profile is a file that is created upon your first login to a networked computer. It contains default settings for your specific profile on that specific computer. Those settings might include: the computer's default printer, other available printers, screen colors, screen resolution, icons on the desktop, screen savers, Word default and backup directories, etc.

You can customize the settings to suit your preferences, but remember that they are machine specific and affect only your account. They will not influence any other networked computer except the one you are using at the time.

Warning: Do not save files to your desktop on a public lab computer! When you save a file to your desktop, it is stored in your user profile. On public lab computers, when you log off the network, your user profile is deleted, and any files you've saved to your desktop are also deleted.

Using Windows Explorer to Manage Your Files

You can use Windows Explorer utility to manage your files. Note: Windows Explorer functions are similar to the functions of My Computer on your Windows desktop.

In Windows Explorer you can move and copy files between drives and directories, " map" (connect to) or disconnect from a network drive or directory, and view file properties and permissions. You can also create folders, open files for editing, rename and delete files.

To access Windows Explorer:

1. Right-click the Start button, then click Explore.
2. The left pane of the window lists all folders in all drives.
3. The right pane lists the contents (files and folders) of the selected drive or folder.
4. Use the Menu Bar or the toolbar buttons to perform desired actions.
5. Click the right mouse button on the file or folder to explore a drop-down list of options.
6. Click View to switch the screen display between a simple list to a more detailed list (filetype, date modified, attributes), or between a list of large icons and a list of small icons.

More Information

HelpLine

740/427-5700