File synchronization and sharing: User practices and challenges

Abstract

In this paper, we present results of qualitative analysis of interviews with 16 university faculty regarding their use of file synchronization and sharing technologies in their work and personal lives. We identify key problems and considerations that influence file synchronization and sharing practices, and describe commonly used strategies. Our findings show that while behaviors have evolved as technology changes, users continue to make extensive use of familiar patterns of access, including automated and manual methods. We identified several factors that influence users’ choice of methods for synchronization, including privacy and security concerns, data size, institutional policies, and knowledge of systems. We present insights about how boundaries and data separation affect synchronization practices, and about specific synchronization issues users faced when collaborating. Our findings extend research on personal and group information management practices and provide insight for the design of synchronization and sharing systems.

The ubiquitous digital file: A review of file management research

“…Users' files come from various sources, including the web (Huvila, Eriksen, Häusner, & Jansson, 2014;Jones, Bruce, & Dumais, 2001), external devices (Capra, Vardell, & Brennan, 2014), and peer-to-peer or cloud software (Marshall & Tang, 2012), although do not often come from their cell phones, despite the ability to download files to smart phones from the web (Capra, 2009). Several studies have sought to understand the contents of users' collections, finding, for example, that document and image files are the most common types kept by students and knowledge workers (GonQalves & Jorge, 2003;Hicks et al, 2008), and that files may be regarded by users as ephemeral, archived, or current for their intended use (Nardi, Anderson, & Erickson, 1995).…”

“…When backing up their files, people may rely on dedicated backup, sharing, or syncing services such as Dropbox or Apple's Time Capsule to make their backups (Marshall & Tang, ). However, some people feel these methods are not reliable or do not fit well into their schedules or operations, and so may initiate and make backups manually (Capra et al, ; Dearman & Pierce, ), for example as a consequence of related activities (Kljun, Mariani, & Dix, ). Not all users make backups (Kljun et al, ), but may nonetheless feel that they should be doing so or doing so more frequently (Kearns, Frey, Tomer, & Alman, ).…”

“…;Capra et al (2014);Carroll (1982);Crowder et al (2015);Dearman and Pierce (2008);GonQalves and Jorge (2003);Henderson (2005);Henderson and Srinivasan (2009);Hicks et al (2008);Huvila et al (2014);Jones et al (2001);Jones et al (2002);Jones et al (2015);Kaptelinin (1996);Kearns et al (2014);Khoo et al (2007);Kljun et al (2016);; C Marshall and Tang (2012)Nardi et al (1995);Ravasio et al (2004);Santosa and Wigdor (2013);Tang et al (2013); OrganizingCreating subfolders, moving and deleting files and foldersBoardman and Sasse (2004); Bergman et al (2010); Berlin et al (1993); Chaudhry et al (2015); Henderson and Srinivasan (2009); Henderson (2011); Henderson and Srinivasan (2011); Hicks et al (2008); Kamaruddin et al (2006); Kamaruddin and Dix (2010); Kaptelinin (1996); Malone (1983); Oh (2012b,a, 2013); Oh and Belkin (2014); Oh (2017); Pare (2011); Trullemans and Signer (2014a); GonQalves and Jorge (2003); Hardof-Jaffe et al (2009b); Henderson (2005); Jones et al (2005); Ravasio et al (2004); Whitham and Cruickshank (2017); Zhang and Hu (2014) Retrieving Navigating, searching, tagging files and folders Barreau and Nardi (1995); Benn et al (2015); Bergman, Beyth-Marom, Nachmias, Gradovitch, and Whittaker (2008); Bergman, Gradovitch, et al (2013a, 2013b); Bergman, Tene-Rubinstein, and Shalom (2013); Bergman et al (2014); Cutrell (2006); Cutrell, Dumais, and Teevan (2006); Fitchett and Cockburn (2015); Jensen et al (2010); Jones et al (2014); Narayan and Olsson (2013); Nardi et al (1995); Ravasio et al (2004); Song and Ling (2011); Teevan et al (2004); Voit, Andrews, and Slany (2011); Voit et al (2012b) Sharing Sending files, negotiating storage, organization, retrieval in shared space Bergman et al (2014); Bergman et al (2018); Berlin et al (1993); Capra et al (2014); Copic Pucihar et al (2016); Dourish, Lamping, and Rodden (1999); M. L. Johnson et al (2009); Khan et al (2018); Mark and Prinz (1997); Massey, TenBrook, et al (2014); Tang et al (2013); A. Voida et al (2013); Wulf (1997); Zhang and Twidale (2012) JOURNAL OF THE ASSOCIATION FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY-January 2020 DOI: 10.1002/asi TenBrook, et al (2014) was that among participants using Windows, conscientiousness was positively correlated with the number of files kept on the desktop, but no such correlation existed for Mac users.…”

Sharing Personal Content Online

“…Personal content sharing may be embedded in activities or applications used for two, often interrelated, tasks: personal information management, or "personally organizing" one's files, for example for synchronization across devices, and group information management, managing files in a collaborative setting such as a repository system (e.g., Dropbox, Google Drive) [1]. To choose channels for information management, users tend to consider content size, privacy and security, institutional policy, service accessibility and usability, and group familiarity with systems [4,30,32]. For example, when choosing between cloud storage and email for file management, people tended to choose email for its perceived reliability, simplicity, broad access, and level of control.…”

Forgotten But Not Gone

“…be assigned to others. This distinction is not always intuitive to users, who require more explanation of how file sharing works [15]. Early user experiences with the cloud revealed that users needed to understand a variety of cloud functions, including replication and synchronization, in order to make full use of cloud storage [33].…”