Using Your Laptop at CCS: Policies and Practices

Acceptable Use of Technology Or Digital Resources And Materials

All students, faculty, and staff are subject to terms and requirements of the CCS Acceptable Use of Technology Resources. Information on responsibilities for the use of computers on campus, on the unauthorized sharing of copyrighted material (both Federal laws and CCS policies), and on sources for finding legal online content is also found in the Student Handbook.

The CCS policy on the deletion, destruction or vandalism of another work is found in the Student Handbook and the Undergraduate and Graduate Course Catalogs:

The deletion or destruction of digital files, another person’s work, or college property is considered a serious offense. All members of the CCS community—students, faculty, and staff—must refrain from altering work that does not belong to them, regardless of the date the piece was created or its location. Violation of this policy will result in serious disciplinary consequences, up to and including dismissal from the institution.

Accessing the CCS Wireless Network

To access the CCS Secure Wireless network, in your wireless settings select one of the following networks depending on your location.

  • ccsdetroit (Ford and Taubman Campus) – Pre-shared key’s for wireless can be found by following the link on access manager or by please contacting Helpdesk at 7818.
  • ccs-acb-housing  (Ford campus housing) – QR codes are available in Dorm Elevator lobby for quick connection.
  • ccs-tc-housing (Taubman campus housing) – QR codes are available in Dorm Elevator lobby for quick connection.

Backup and Storage Requirements: Best Practices To Secure Your Work

CCS provides several ways for you to secure and save your work while you are working on the CCS network. There are also best practices for securing and saving your work on your own laptop.

CCS Network: Home Drive and Shared Drive

Home Drive: Each student has 5GB of storage in their personal folder on the Home Drive of the CCS Network. Only the individual student has access to this Home folder and the folder is only available when a student is connected to the CCS network through a wired internet connection (see below). This storage is meant to accommodate a student’s current work in progress and other projects and to provide a secure location that is consistently backed up through CCS.

PLEASE NOTE that in order to maintain our servers and our network, the student Home folders are purged every May on the Friday following the opening of the Student Exhibition. The Home folder is NOT meant as permanent storage.

Shared Drive: In addition to the individual Home folders on the Home Drive, CCS hosts a Shared Drive in which instructors may provide course folders for students to share files. Instructors will inform students if they are expected to upload work to a Shared Drive folder.

Files in shared course folders are deleted at the end of each semester; These folders are NOT meant as permanent storage. Like the Home Drive, the Shared Drive is only available through a direct connection to the CCS network (see below).

Accessing the Home Drive and the Student Shared Drive:

Taubman Campus

  1. To access the CCS network on the Taubman Campus from your MacBook Pro laptop:
  2. Connect your laptop to the CCS network through an Ethernet cable. Turn off your wireless so that your laptop will connect directly to the network.
  3. In the upper tool bar, click on “Go >Connect to Server.”
  4. Type in the address of 172.24.128.10 (see below for the address for the Ford Campus)
  5. Login with your CCS username and password
  6. Select the Drive that you want to access

Ford Campus

  1. To access the CCS network on the Taubman Campus from your MacBook Pro laptop:
  2. Connect your laptop to the CCS network through an Ethernet cable. Turn off your wireless so that your laptop will connect directly to the network.
  3. In the upper tool bar, click on “Go >Connect to Server.”
  4. Type in the address of 172.16.128.5
  5. Login with your CCS username and password
  6. Select the Drive that you want to access

Additional Storage Options

Blackboard Drive

File storage is also provided through Blackboard’s “My Content” area, accessed once you have logged into Blackboard by clicking on the Content Collection Tab at the top of the page and then selecting “My Content”. “My Content” is available through any Internet connection and is not managed or purged by CCS. It is each user’s responsibility to manage the files in this folder.

Google Drive

Students, Faculty, and Staff are provided with unlimited storage in their CCS Google Drive, which comes with your CCS email account.

Personal Storage and Backup

We recommend maintaining an External Hard Drive with a minimum of 1 Terabyte of storage to be used for backup of all your work. It is strongly recommended to keep your External Hard Drive in a consistent, clean environment (such as your desk) and that you backup your files regularly. If using a laptop, we recommend once a day. To help extend the life of your External Hard Drive and protect against file corruption or crashing your Drive, this External Drive should not be carried around with you in a backpack or other case or used to continually access files. A second External Drive or Flash Drive is recommended for transferring files, saving any work done on a CCS computer, or sharing work with others.

When connecting the Hard Drive that you are using for back up and security to an Apple computer for the first time, format it as Mac OS Extended (Journaled). If you will be using your Hard Drive to potentially share files between a Mac and a PC, format it as Fat32.

Keeping your Work Safe:

  • Put a login on your personal laptop
  • Do not save any work to a CCS lab computer desktop; this work will be deleted when a new user logs in and could be vulnerable by being accessible to others.
  • Always remember to log out of a CCS lab computer, Blackboard, or your own laptop when you are finished with your work.

Software and Anti-Virus

Currently, CCS updates its lab and faculty computers at the start of each semester; users are also recommended to keep software and operating systems on personal computers updated at the same interval to remain compatible with CCS lab machines, rendering computers, output equipment, and other campus technologies.

It is also highly recommended to run up-to-date antivirus software regularly.

Treatment of Confidential or Proprietary Work On Your Laptop

While at CCS, students often have the opportunity to work on Sponsored Projects or other projects that may involve confidential information. It is important to understand that project content on a personal laptop and/or personal storage device is bound by the Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) that governs any individual project. Having signed this agreement at the start of such a project, you are not permitted to share any project-related content outside of people in the course and anyone determined by the client.

Always remember: Never leave your laptop Unattended.