Today Baylor's Electronic Library launched Bearspace, a new 100 MB secure, campus-wide file management and collaboration solution for faculty, students or staff. Bearspace will be available to faculty and staff as a pilot system for the remainder of the fall semester. The pilot project will allow for testing and monitoring of the Bearspace system to refine the system requirements for over 16,000 users with 24 hour/7 day availability. A launch for the students is planned for spring 2005.

An exciting feature of this new service is its complete accessibility of stored documents through the Internet using a web browser at the address http://bearspace.baylor.edu. Web accessibility will provide the connection to important files from networked classrooms, home and any place where an Internet connection is available

But wait, there's more - the features of Bearspace include:

• A ticketing system that allows documents and folders to be shared with colleagues outside of Baylor University;
• The ability to checked in and checked out files, controlled by the file owner;
• A history of document versions;
• A record of who has read and written to specific files;
• The ability to email notifications of changes to individuals automatically;
•Complete control over how files are managed and with whom they are shared.
The Bearspace system addresses two significant issues requested from the Baylor community. First, the ability to have an easily accessible storage area for files from both inside and outside of Baylor's network; and second, the ability to share documents and files with colleagues from outside the Baylor community.

Currently the software that enables our Bearspace system is used by several institutions of higher education including Johns Hopkins University, Northwestern University, Yale University, University of Illinois and University of Texas.

For more information about Bearspace, go to http://bearspace.baylor.edu.

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