Dropbox Gains Momentum in Education, Joins Internet2 NET+ Program

Published on March 07, 2017

Offers easy path to improve collaboration and productivity for leading universities and research networks

Continuing its momentum in the education space, Dropbox today announced its participation with Internet2, an advanced technology community comprised of 319 leading research and education institutions. As part of the Internet2 NET+ program, Dropbox's file storage and collaboration platform will be available to member universities across the country. The relationship is designed to ease deployment, accelerate adoption, and increase security and data protection for the academic enterprise.

The agreement with Internet2’s NET+ Program, a standards-based service portfolio designed by higher education institutions, ensures that the universities signing up for Dropbox Education have the most favorable commercial terms. Through the peer-driven NET+ validation process, institutions work with providers to customize offerings that help address their security, identity management, and integration challenges. This approach maximizes deployment efficiencies and minimizes the risks and costs of migrating from on-campus to cloud-based solutions.

NET+ Dropbox Education provides access to Dropbox with added benefits that include lower price ceilings and pre-negotiated contracts and Business Associate Agreements in support of HIPAA compliance. The offering also provides faster speeds with direct peering from Internet2 into Dropbox and Amazon Web Services. This offering is also available to any not-for-profit university, while Internet2 members receive an additional discount.

“Dropbox has long been one of the most widely used individual cloud services on member campuses. We are excited Dropbox has joined the program and the community will now have access to a full enterprise level NET+ Dropbox offering,” said Shelton Waggener, Senior Vice President at Internet2. “Dropbox is a leader in the sharing and collaboration space, and we've already seen a groundswell of interest in the offering. With more universities and research institutions moving to cloud-based platforms, NET+ Dropbox will fill a vital need for many of our members.”

“Dropbox is committed to the higher education market and we are eager to form deeper connections with the community through the Internet2 NET+ program,” said Jason Katcher, Head of Education for Dropbox. “Internet2 now makes it easier than ever for universities and colleges to adopt Dropbox Education. With over 12 million registered university users globally, Dropbox is quickly becoming the premier tool that faculty, staff, and researchers choose to power their sharing and collaboration needs.”

Dropbox Education recent partnerships and customers

In October 2016, Dropbox announced a strategic partnership with Blackboard Learn, becoming Blackboard’s Premier Partner for collaboration, workflows, and storage. Dropbox is also now used in over 6,000 educational institutions worldwide, with new customers signing up everyday. Some of Dropbox’s existing and new customers include Arizona State University, Boston University, Arkansas State, Brown University, Choate Rosemary Hall, Georgia Tech, Harvard Medical School, the University of Oklahoma, Villanova University, and the Wharton School.

“Arizona State University aims to create learning environments that meet the higher education challenges of the 21st century,” says Gordon Wishon, CIO of ASU. “To that end, we’ve deployed Dropbox Education campuswide. Dropbox’s partnership with Internet2 will help other institutions benefit from its ease of use, integrations with popular systems, and advanced collaboration features.”

“Dropbox's NET+ offering will help us and other schools provide better support for the significant organic Dropbox usage on campus,” says Tracy Schroeder, Vice President of Information Services and Technology at Boston University. “By providing a centralized deployment, we will help ensure that BU faculty and staff are able to store and share data using a service that is not only convenient, but also secure and scalable.”

Additional resources

Contact Dropbox or Internet2 if your school is interested in taking advantage of the NET+ Dropbox Education offering:

Internet2: Sean O’Brien, Program Manager - sobrien@internet2.edu
Dropbox: Jeremy Klitzman, Program Manager - jeremy@dropbox.com

Learn more about Dropbox Education:

Explore the Dropbox blog
Follow Dropbox and Dropbox Business on Twitter

About Dropbox

Dropbox keeps more than 500 million registered users on the same page with easy-to-use collaboration tools and the fastest, most-reliable file sync platform. From the smallest business to the largest enterprise, we make teamwork better. For more information, please visit dropbox.com/news.

About Internet2

Internet2 is a non-profit, member-owned advanced technology community founded by the nation’s leading higher education institutions in 1996. Internet2 serves more than 94,000 community anchor institutions, 317 U.S. universities, 70 government agencies, 43 regional and state education networks, over 900 InCommon participants, 78 leading corporations working with our community, and 61 national research and education network partners that represent more than 100 countries.

Internet2 delivers a diverse portfolio of technology solutions that leverages, integrates, and amplifies the strengths of its members and helps support their educational, research and community service missions. Internet2’s core infrastructure components include the nation’s largest and fastest research and education network that was built to deliver advanced, customized services that are accessed and secured by the community-developed trust and identity framework.

Internet2 offices are located in Ann Arbor, Mich.; Denver, Colo.; Emeryville, Calif.; Washington, D.C.; and West Hartford, Conn. For more information, visit www.internet2.edu or follow @Internet2 on Twitter.