VOL. CXVIII, NO. 141
DAILYBAROMETER.COM
WEDNESDAY, MAY 17, 2016 OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
You’ve (lost)
AIL COURTESY OF GOOGLE
OSU student Google, ONID accounts deleted after graduation, information potentially lost forever By Gaby Mudd News Contributor
Imagine having worked on and completed a senior thesis, successfully graduated and defended it, and then left the university, only to find six months later all your information and documents had been deleted from your university account, and were now lost forever. This is a scenario students at Oregon State University may face after graduation. OSU deletes ONID accounts six months after graduation in order to clear space for incoming students, according to OSU Information Services. However, most students hold significant amounts of information on their school emails including contacts, and data from Google Drive, according to Carlos Jacinto, the director of school outreach for GradGopher, a company dedicated to helping students save schoolwork post graduation. Most graduating seniors do not real-
ize the importance of saving their data. There are also several misleading solutions on how to save files from a school email account according to Jacinto. “Every student we have talked to has lost data on their student accounts,” Jacinto said. “There are common misconceptions on how to save files. Specifically that ‘shared with’ and ‘owned’ files from a Google Drive are deleted if the host account is deleted. Saving their files comes down to how educated about this they are.” According to Jacinto, 62 percent of a student’s google drive files are ‘shared with.’ This percentage includes work from projects, papers and work files that are shared with a student throughout college. Jacinto said there are many solutions available for this problem, including both paid and free software. Through his company’s software, users are able to transfer their student email accounts into their personal email accounts, including their contact lists, shared files and
the organization of their school drive, according to Jacinto. “This software is specifically tailored to help graduating students,” Jacinto said. “We want to make sure students aren’t losing files that they have spent months of their time on.” Another alternative to using this software is through Google Takeout, according to Jacinto. Google Takeout allows students to export their data that is stored within Google products. However, Google Takeout does not save shared files, according to Jacinto. Another way to save Gmail files is through downloading or moving files between emails, according to Jake Moses, a staff member at the walk up service desk for OSU Information Services. “The easiest way is to download everything from your account to a thumb drive,” Moses said. OSU graduating seniors are encouraged by the university to save the data from their ONID accounts before it is deleted.
Students can also share data by creating a new file in their personal Gmail accounts and moving data from their ONID accounts into the new files, which transfers the file and does not delete when the ONID account is removed, according to Moses. “If you move the file it is not making a copy or sharing it,” Moses said. “It actually moves the file from one account to the other.” Michael Flores, a graduate student in the department of horticulture, admitted he was unaware that his school email address would be deleted. Flores has his 106 page thesis and other shared documents from his professor in his school Google Drive. “I would be upset if I would have lost access to my thesis,” Flores said. “It would be nice to get an email alerting students that our Gmails are going to get deleted and be given information on how to save our data.” baro.news@oregonstate.edu
Sanders wins Oregon primary The Daily Barometer Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has won the state of Oregon primary. Yesterday was the last day that voters across the state were able to turn in their ballots and make their vote, and voice heard for the Oregon primary. According to ASOSU Executive Director of Government Relations Tabitha Pitzer, over 40 students turned in their ballots at the table in the Memorial Union Quad and another 80 turned in their ballots in the ASOSU office. Pitzer does not know how many ballots were cast at the Valley Library
dropboxes and will not know until fall term when voter data is released. Oregon State University and Corvallis community members had the opportunity to cast their votes at multiple on-campus locations including the Valley Library, the ASOSU office and the Oregon Student Association’s Vote OR Vote table in the MU Quad. The Vote OR Vote campaign registered over 3,000 students to vote since the beginning of the year and distributed another 3,200 educational fliers, gave class presentations and held tabling and clipboarding events in the MU Quad, Pitzer said. Vote OR Vote also collaborated with
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other schools to run phone banks reminding people to perform their civic duties and turn in their ballots. The overarching goal for Vote OR Vote is to register 8,000 voters by the end of 2016 because it is a general election year. “We’re a little over 40 percent of the way there,” Pitzer said. Over the summer, Vote OR Vote plans to register at least 800 more voters, and another 4,000 once school gets back in session when Election Day is closer. Yesterday’s tabling event marked the end of Vote OR Vote’s efforts for the 2015-2016 school year. baro.news@oregonstate.edu
SEAN BASSINGER | THE DAILY BAROMETER
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