Facilitating Research Collaboration in the Australian Geoscience Community Using CloudStor

Researchers in the geosciences are increasingly working with large files and datasets, which they often need to share with collaborators external to their institution. Examples include maps of rock types, computer models and simulations. These files may contain unpublished, confidential or commercially sensitive data. AARNet´s CloudStor, which has received input from the Australian geoscience research community during its development, is a new online file sharing service combining several transport, storage and security methods, to allow Australian researchers to quickly and easily share files of any size for a limited period of time in a trusted environment. Researchers at supported institutions can logon to CloudStor using their institutional credentials and upload a file to share with any collaborator, or issue a voucher for any collaborator to share a file with them. This paper discusses observations on the relevance of CloudStor to the Australian geoscience research community.