I've "worked with computers" since I was a teenager, but for a long time I didn't make backups even though I knew it was something I should have been doing. It wasn't until I actually had a hard drive crash on me that I got backup religion.
My employer though, uses source control rigorously and makes deployment and usage of those tools dead easy. We also have folder redirection possible if you wanted to make your "My Documents" folder available (and backed up automatically) on the network. There's SharePoint too, but sometimes it's a PITA.
My hypothesis is this: Given OU Medicine's student computer requirements [1], I'm betting that these researchers just didn't have the patience or knowledge in integrating a Mac into their Windows-centric network.
How much data are we talking about here? <10 Gigabytes? Solutions like Dropbox are just so simple for data in that range that you'd be crazy not to use them.
I use dropbox to sync passwords and some docs from work/home. I'd like to use dropbox (or something like carbonite) to back up the rest, but frankly I'm too cheap/lazy to go through with it.
Of course, she knew about backing up, but who has the time to do it? After all, who wants to figure it out, install stuff, port stuff or even choose a service! Who has the time...
Such things really aren't a result of ignorance, but laziness. Yet again are we any different?