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DriveGroups: Facilitating Access Control in Google Drive

Figure 1a shows a screenshot of the "My Drive" page of Google Drive's interface from the perspective of a user. The screenshot includes the Google Drive search bar, logo, and side bar list of pages. There is one folder in the user's Drive, named "Example Folder", and the user has right-clicked on the folder to reveal the list of various folder settings with "Share" highlighted as it is being hovered over it by the cursor. Figure 1b shows a screenshot of the file-sharing settings of a Google Drive File. There is an input box to add "people and groups" with a list of shared anonymous emails and an "Editor" title. Below, a "Get Link" section allows the user to copy a restricted link that people added to the file can use to access the file. Figure 1c is a screenshot of DriveGroups add-on in use within the Google Drive interface in the background. It is open to the "Edit Group Access" page, where the user can give either "edit", "comment", "view", or "no access" to each of two groups, which are labeled "students" and "administrators". There is also a red button marked "Done" and a blue button marked "Home" at the bottom of the sidebar.
Google Drive’s sharing interface requires users to navigate a series of steps (a & b) for each individual user and file to grant different levels of access to files in a directory. DriveGroups (c) allows users to create reusable settings for groups of collaborators.

Description

As data sharing becomes increasingly essential to scientific research, many scientists find that existing technologies fall short, especially when it comes to collaboration across diverse teams. Our research reveals that while tools like Google Drive are widely used, they lack the fine-grained, discoverable controls needed for effective and secure sharing within scientific collaborations.

We are addressing this gap with DriveGroups, a Google Drive add-on that streamlines data sharing through role-based access control. DriveGroups enables researchers to easily manage file permissions across an entire project or lab, setting intuitive, transparent defaults for different roles (e.g., PIs, co-PIs, students). Unlike traditional systems, DriveGroups presents access settings through a simple, sidebar-based interface, making it easy to understand who has access to what and why.

This work is grounded in rigorous research. Through ethnographic interviews and observational studies with 38 academic researchers, we identified key pain points in current practices, including the difficulty of balancing security with collaboration and limited awareness of available access control features. In usability testing, DriveGroups matched or outperformed standard Google Drive in terms of ease of use, clarity, and effectiveness.

This research is part of a broader investigation into the sociotechnical challenges of data sharing in life sciences. Our goal is to ensure that powerful access control does not come at the cost of usability, and that tools are built to support the real needs of scientists working on high-impact, multidisciplinary research.

DriveGroups puts usability first, so scientists can focus on discovery, not file permissions.

Demonstration Video

Publications

J. G. Frazier, E. K. Weinstein, I. Izydorczak, Y. Wu, N. Cuadros, D. A. Sur, and S. Morrison-Smith. 2025. DriveGroups: Using Group Perspective for Usable Data Sharing in Research Collaborations. Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact. 9, 1, Article GROUP13 (January 2025), 28 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3701192

S. Morrison-Smith, C. Boucher, A. Sarcevic, N. Noyes, C. O’Brien, N. Cuadros, and J. Ruiz. 2022. Challenges in large-scale bioinformatics projects. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 9, 125 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01141-4

Presentations

I. Izydorczak, J. G. Frazier, Y. Wu, E. K. Weinstein, J. Simeone, L. Ceccon, C. Whynott, S. Morrison-Smith. 2024. Facilitating Data Sharing with DriveGroups: A System Overview. Proceedings of the 12th NY6 Undergraduate Research Conference.

Y. Wu, J. G. Frazier, I. Izydorczak, D. A. Sur, E. K. Weinstein, N. Cuadros, S. Morrison-Smith. 2023. DriveGroups: Using Group Perspective to Facilitate Data Sharing in Life Sciences. Proceedings of the 11th NY6 Undergraduate Research Conference.

I. Izydorczak, Y. Wu, J. G. Frazier, E. K. Weinstein, S. Morrison-Smith. 2023. DriveGroups: Facilitating Access Control in Google Drive. Hamilton College Summer Research Poster.

C. O’Brien, N. Cuadros, S. Morrison-Smith. 2021. DriveGroups: Facilitating Access Control in Google Drive. Barnard College Summer Research Institute Poster.

Grants

National Science Foundation. (2022). CRII: HCC: RUI: Transparency and Access Control in Life Science Data Sharing (Award No. 2225345). https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2225345

Team

Faculty

  • Dr. Sarah Morrison-Smith

Undergraduate Researchers

  • Sydney Chen
  • Soren Lera
  • Leah Reed
  • Joseph Simeone

Previous Undergraduate Researchers

  • Perrin Anto (Google)
  • Julia Chang
  • Nazaret Cuadros
  • Jamie Duncan
  • James Frazier
  • Iris Izydorczak
  • Catherine O’Brien
  • Hariti Patel
  • Dipashreya Sur
  • Emily Ringel
  • Morgan Zee
  • Yiyun Wang
  • Emily Weinstein
  • Connor Whynott
  • Yifan (Ivan) Wu
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