Information Services
Digital Storage and Standards
Central Washington University's faculty, staff, and students require access to institutional data in support of the university's teaching, research, and outreach missions. The purpose of this standard is to define the correct uses for each university-supported service and product. Furthermore, this standard defines what type of data can be stored in that service or product.
Data classification provides a basis for understanding and managing institutional data based on the level of criticality and required confidentiality of the data. The university's institutional data will be assigned one of three classifications:
- Public: Data intended for broad distribution in support of the university's missions or freely available to any person or organization with no restrictions.
- Restricted: Data that is circulated on a need-to-know basis or sensitive enough to warrant careful management and protection to safeguard its confidentiality, integrity, and availability, as well as appropriate access, use, and disclosure.
- Confidential: Data protected or regulated by law or critical to university operations including sensitive personal information. Unauthorized disclosure of this information could seriously and adversely impact the university or the interest of individuals and organizations associated with the university.
Recommendation notes:
- If possible, save departmental work data to a network share
- If a VPN connection is not available to save work to OneDrive for Business or a designated departmental Sharepoint site if one exists.
For more information and guidelines see the full data management and cloud storage policy.
Digital Storage Table
A list of common digital storage types and their classifications. Note that of the following, only Network/File Shares are confidential and Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Sharepoint are confidential with caution and restrictions.
| Supported Services | Public | Restricted | Recommended Use |
|---|---|---|---|
| Canvas | Yes | Yes | Academic course materials |
| Email (@cwu.edu) | Yes | Yes | Communication oriented |
| Local hard drive/desktop | Yes | Yes | Not recommended |
| OneDrive for Business | Yes | Yes | Individual CWU data |
| Microsoft Teams | Yes | Yes | Dept./shared data |
| Microsoft Sharepoint | Yes | Yes | Dept./shared data |
| Network/File Shares | Yes | Yes | Dept./shared data |
| Kaltura | Yes | No | Persistent video content |
| Zoom | Yes | No | Mtgs. and video content |
| Thumb drives/portable etc | No | No | Not recommended |
| Email services (non cwu) | No | No | Not recommended |
| Other cloud storage | No | No | Not recommended |
| Google Doc | No | No | Not recommended |
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