Around campus, your colleague or classmate might mention that they’re saving their research to OneDrive. You might get automated emails from SharePoint regarding collaborative documents that you’ve posted in Teams. All of these tools are Microsoft platforms are related to the cloud, but what do they do? How do they interact?

Teams, OneDrive, and SharePoint are all connected, but they are not the same thing. Each has different functions and interactions with one another, so it’s helpful to think of these tools as different parts of a whole, like the building below.

OneDrive is like your office: it is your personal space to store documents, notes, research, and organize as you please. No one can enter your office unless you invite them in. It’s ideal for your own projects, and maybe collaborating with a few colleagues, but it’s not suited for larger meetings or projects.

Teams is like a conference room where you regularly meet with different campus groups you’re a part of, whether that is a department or a club. Here, you can iron out ideas, collaborate on new projects, and get updates related to ongoing group goals. You might bring some of your own work, such as a proposal, picture, or agenda, into this conference room.

SharePoint is the university hall where both your OneDrive office and your Teams conference room live. It keeps the internet and lights running in both places, but you mostly keep your work within your own office or department space rather than in the other rooms and closets around the building.

So, when people say, “It’s on SharePoint,” they usually mean, more specifically, it’s been shared in OneDrive or Teams, similar to how someone might tell you to “come see me in Carlson” when they really mean their office in Carlson. On rare occasions, such as for university events or programs, you might need to use the whole building (or, digitally, the SharePoint platform), but these cases should be discussed with ITS.

More questions? Reach out to techtraining@clarku.edu to learn more!

Now that Clark University is on Canvas, all Clarkies have access to a great new tool that allows everyone to record the correct pronunciation of their name for colleagues, professors, and classmates: NameCoach!

What is NameCoach?

NameCoach is software built into Canvas that allows all members of the Clark community to record the pronunciation of their names. These recordings are then made available to professors, classmates, and colleagues within the same courses, so not only can you record your own name for others, but you can also listen and learn the correct pronunciations of people’s names in your class or department.

Why should I use NameCoach?

Margo Foreman, Clark’s Vice President and Chief Officer of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, strongly recommends all Clarkies to record their name in NameCoach to ensure all people on campus are respected. Vice President Foreman suggests,

“I encourage every student to utilize the NameCoach app to record their name. As a matter of pride and in order for others to respect the uniqueness of your name and its pronunciation, please slowly annunciate your name to help others discern how to appropriately articulate it. I suggest users break the pronunciation of their names down by syllable or phonetically then, repeat it fluidly but not fast.”

How do I record my name or listen to pronunciations?

Click here see step-by-step directions for recording your name and listening to the recordings of others.

Have you ever wished that you could quickly collect information from your class, student group, department or others? If so, you’ve probably dabbled with Qualtrics, our survey tool. While Qualtrics is a sophisticated, market-leading survey tool, it can be a little complicated for basic information collection.

In cases where Qualtrics is ‘too much’, consider Microsoft Forms, available now to all staff, faculty and students. Forms allows you to quickly and easily create short online forms to collect information from groups, and offers common question types including multiple choice, short and long text entry and Likert-scale. Additionally, it is very easy to restrict participation to users with Clark credentials, and export responses as Excel files or as a graphical report.

Access Microsoft Forms by clicking here: https://forms.office.com/ or in your Microsoft 365 portal, by clicking the “Waffle icon” (9 dots) in the top left of your screen. If you don’t see Forms there, click All Apps.

Click here to access a Microsoft Forms Essentials Course in Linked in Learning (click here to learn more about LinkedIn Learning at Clark).