ARCHIVED: After the retirement of Alfresco Share, what other service should I use to store and share my research documentation?

This content has been archived, and is no longer maintained by Indiana University. Information here may no longer be accurate, and links may no longer be available or reliable.

The Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (Indiana CTSI) retired its implementation of the Alfresco Share document collaboration service on August 31, 2015. Read-only access remains available to owners of Alfresco Share documents and site content; tools for uploading documents, creating sites, and inviting collaborators are disabled.

To resume the online collaborations you had in Alfresco Share, you must choose a service at your institution that provides similar capabilities. Furthermore, if you intend on storing or sharing documents that contain protected health information (PHI) regulated by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), or other types of confidential information protected by laws or governed by institutional data management policies, the service you choose must provide all the safeguards necessary to comply with those laws and policies.

Following is information for researchers at Indiana University, the University of Notre Dame, and Purdue University who want to continue storing and sharing their documents using another service.

On this page:

Downloading Alfresco Share documents to your computer

Important:

Your computer's hard drive must be encrypted before you can use it legally to store files containing PHI.

To move your Alfresco Share documents to another service, you must first download them from your site to your local computer. You can download individual documents, or create and download a compressed file archive containing multiple documents.

  • To download documents individually:
    1. In the Document Library, mouse over the document's filename, and then, from the menu that appears on the right, click Download.
    2. Choose whether to open or save the document on your local computer.
  • To create and download a file archive:
    1. In the Document Library, select the items (i.e., files and folders) you want to download. To select everything, at the top of the list, click Select, and then choose All.
    2. Click Selected Items, and then choose Compress and download.
    3. In the "Compress and download" dialog box, give the new archive file a name, click Download, and then select the location on your computer where you want it saved.
Note:
To keep other content from your Alfresco Share site(s), such as wiki, blog, or calendar entries, contact Indiana CTSI support to arrange to have your content saved as downloadable files.

Options for IU investigators

Moving documents that do not contain PHI

Investigators at IU who want to store and share research documentation that does not contain HIPAA-regulated PHI or other data elements classified as Restricted or Critical by the IU Committee of Data Stewards, may use IU's enterprise Box service.

IU Box accounts are available to Indiana University students, faculty, staff, and affiliates.

Your ARCHIVED: Box account will be created automatically the first time you log into Box at IU.

For more about Box at IU, see:

After retrieving your documents from Alfresco Share and storing them locally, you can upload them to Box. If your Alfresco Share documents are compressed into an archive, extract them to a folder on your computer before uploading them to Box.

To upload files to your Box account, use either of the following options:

  • To upload a single file or multiple files simultaneously, click Upload, and then Files. Click the file(s) you want to upload (hold the Ctrl or Command key to select multiple files), and then click Open.
  • To upload a single folder or multiple folders simultaneously, click Upload, and then Folders.

    Note: To use this option, you must change your browser's settings (either temporarily or permanently) to permit Box to open a pop-up window and run the Java plug-in.

    When the Folder Uploader - Fetchbox applet launches, you can drag files and folders from your computer's file system and drop them in the area below "Upload files to Box". Alternatively, you can click Add files, and then click to select single or multiple files and folders. When you're finished selecting files and/or folders, click Upload.

Once your documents are in Box, you can set up Box folders and send invitations to re-establish the collaborations you had in Alfresco Share; see ARCHIVED: Share and collaborate on files with Box.

Note: Before inviting collaborators who are not affiliated with IU, direct them to create their own personal Box accounts.

If you need help with Box at IU, or have questions, contact your Support Center.

Moving documents that contain PHI or institutional data classified as Restricted

Options for Notre Dame investigators

Moving documents that do not contain PHI

University of Notre Dame investigators whose documents do not contain HIPAA-regulated PHI, or other forms of institutional data designated highly sensitive by university policy (e.g., bank account numbers, driver's license numbers, and Social Security Numbers), are free to move their documents to the university's enterprise Box service.

Box at Notre Dame provides a secure online storage environment that lets you share your documents with collaborators at Notre Dame and other institutions. For more, see Using Box at Notre Dame.

Important:
The University of Notre Dame enterprise Box service is not authorized for use with files containing HIPAA-regulated data or other forms of highly sensitive data (e.g., bank account numbers, driver's license numbers, and Social Security Numbers). For more, see the university's information handling standards for highly sensitive information.

Moving documents that contain PHI

University of Notre Dame investigators whose documents contain PHI must use the CorpFS departmental network file storage system. CorpFS is the only storage solution at the university that is authorized for use with HIPAA-regulated PHI and other forms of highly sensitive data (e.g., bank account numbers, driver's license numbers, and Social Security Numbers). For more about CorpFS, see the Office of Information Technologies (OIT) CorpFS page.

For more about the university's policies governing work with highly sensitive data, see Highly Sensitive Information Handling Standard.

Options for Purdue investigators

Moving documents that do not contain PHI

Purdue University investigators whose documents do not contain HIPAA-regulated PHI can move their documents to any of the following services provided by the Research Computing division of Information Technology at Purdue (ITaP):

  • PURR: The Purdue University Research Repository (PURR) is an online collaborative workspace supporting the data management needs of Purdue researchers and their collaborators. Depending on your project's needs, you can use PURR to create private or public sites:
    • Private project spaces: Private project spaces are secured with authentication and SSL encryption. Only invited collaborators can access the project. Access to uploaded files is controlled by the project manager.
    • Published datasets: After completing a guided review process, researchers can publish their datasets with Digital Object Identifiers, allowing other scholars to reuse their data, reproduce their results, and cite their work.
    Important:
    You cannot use PURR to store or share HIPAA-regulated PHI, or other government-restricted, export-controlled, or proprietary company information. You can store identifiable personal data in a private project space only after acquiring the appropriate Institutional Review Board (IRB) approvals. Data containing personally identifiable or confidential information must be anonymized before publishing. You can store data regulated by the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) in a private project space only after passing a compliance review conducted by staff from the Office of the Registrar. For more, see the Terms of Use.
  • Research Data Depot: Purdue's Research Data Depot is a high-capacity, centralized GPFS storage solution designed to help Purdue researchers share their data with collaborators at the university and other institutions. All Purdue research groups are eligible for free trial accounts; additional capacity can be purchased on an annual basis in increments of 1 TB. For details, see the ITaP Data Depot page.
    Important:
    Purdue's Research Data Depot is not approved for storing files containing data regulated by HIPAA or other federal regulations. However, you can use the Data Depot for work with human subjects data that are not regulated by HIPAA. If you have questions, or need help determining whether the Data Depot is the appropriate storage solution for your data, contact ITaP Research Computing.

For information about other research storage options available at Purdue, see the ITaP Storage Resources page.

Moving documents that contain PHI

Purdue investigators whose documents contain PHI should move them to the university's Filelocker system, which ITaP developed specifically for the secure transmission of electronically stored PHI. You can use Filelocker's web-based interface to upload documents and share them with collaborators (at Purdue and other institutions). For more, see the Filelocker service page.

For information about HIPAA compliance at Purdue, see the university's HIPAA Compliance website.

Getting help

If you have questions about the Alfresco Share retirement, or need help choosing a replacement service, contact Indiana CTSI Support.

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Last modified on 2023-02-02 12:40:36.