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Team Folders

A team folder — not a personal account's shared files — is the recommended home for data in a collaborative research project. If a project involves more than one person, its shared data belongs in a team folder from the start, not scattered across individual members' personal storage and stitched together with ad-hoc shares.

Nextcloud's Team Folders (also called Group Folders) are shared storage areas that belong to the group or project itself rather than to any one person. Everyone with access sees the same folder in the same place, with permissions managed centrally instead of built up from individual shares. For the general mechanics, see the Group Folders app documentation — this page covers what's specific to how IREI provisions and uses them.

Requesting a team folder​

Team folders are provisioned by IREI, not created by users themselves. How you request one depends on whether you're new to IREI or already have an account:

  • New users — if you're applying for IREI access for the first time (typically a PI applying together with students or collaborators, some of whom may already have accounts), request the team folder as part of that same application. If you don't ask up front, it's usually raised as part of the follow-up conversation once IREI staff review the application.
  • Existing users — if you already have IREI access and need a team folder (including an additional one for a new project, or several for multiple projects), send a general support request to irei@hi.is.

Either way, include:

  • The research group or project the folder is for
  • Who should have access
  • The expected storage size (the default per-project quota is 2TB; larger requests need justification, same as for individual accounts)

Permission levels​

As far as we know, access to a team folder is all-or-nothing for its members — everyone added has the same level of access, rather than some members getting read-only and others read/write. Nextcloud's underlying Group Folders feature does support finer-grained "Advanced Permissions" (per file/folder, per group), but that isn't something IREI currently configures — if your project needs it, ask when requesting the folder.

How it differs from just sharing a personal folder​

A team folder is administered independently of any one person's account — if a member leaves the project, the folder and its data stay with the team, and access is simply revoked for that person rather than the whole folder needing to be re-shared from someone else's account.