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Fall 2005
by Ellen McDermott
ATUS is working with faculty to research and evaluate Digital Asset Management Systems (DAMS) for use at Western. The possibilities of digital asset repositories for Western are exciting. The reasons we're excited about this potential are examined below.
What is Digital Asset Management?
A Digital Asset Management system encompasses the infrastructure and applications necessary to capture, store and catalog any digital media, as well as the tools required to search, index and publish those media assets, individually or in collections.
What constitutes a digital asset?
Any digitized file can be considered a digital asset. Images, graphics, video and audio files are some of the most commonly seen files in the academic environment, although the list also includes text images, spreadsheet files, PDFs, XML files, and a variety of others.
How does a Digital Asset Management System work?
When a digital asset is stored in a computer system, critical identifying information called ëmetadata' is also stored with the file. Metadata might include the file name, the type of file, who owns it, who can access it, what applications can open the file, the creation date, subject terms, keywords and other data. The asset management system provides a computer interface (usually on the web) for searching and identifying files each time an object is requested and also determines if the requestor has permission to access the file. This ensures that all digital objects are secure, and cannot be used or manipulated improperly. This is important, both to protect copyrighted information and to maintain confidentiality of personal records (e.g. staff photos, clinical images).
How would we use a DAMS at Western?
The possibilities for storing and accessing digital images for instruction are almost unlimited. As an example of how such a system would benefit both faculty and students, let's look at how an Art History professor who lectures on Greek sculpture would use such a system. The professor can store and catalog a series of non-copyrighted images (or copyrighted images with clearance) about her topic in a local repository of digital images. Using a DAMS interface, both she and her students could then search for suitable images by keywords or other metadata. Her images could also be stored in collections comprising images suitable for an entire class or for a particular unit of instruction. Links from the image collections could be ported to a Blackboard course so that students could go directly to the appropriate image collections for study.
The DAMS check the login of each person seeking access to the images, to ensure that any limits on access to the images are enforced (e.g. only students in a class, only those specifically authorized on a list). Once authorized, the instructor or students can then select those digital items that suit particular teaching and learning needs by looking at ìthumbnailî images. Files selected can then be exported into a PowerPoint presentation, Blackboard, or other application for display to her class. Utilizing software tools, the instructor can also build her own file collection for use in future classes.
A Digital Access Management System at Western can thus provide faculty and students with a much needed central repository for digitized files, allowing all of us to store, share, and use images and other digital files more easily. It will also provide both security and ease of use, as well as preserve the integrity of the file and all of the information pertaining to it.
This fall, ATUS will be inviting DAMS vendors to campus to demonstrate their products to faculty and staff. If you are interested in attending a demonstration, or have other questions on DAMS, please contact Ellen McDermott, ATUS Web Services, at ellen.mcdermott@wwu.edu. A web site found here provides preliminary information.
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