Managing Digital Assets in Tertiary Education
The projects aimed to develop a toolkit to support the creation and implementation of digital asset management and preservation in the further education setting, and demonstrate its application in the setting of John Wheatley College (JWC).
Executive Summary
Aims and objectives
The project was funded by JISC under the 4/04 programme which funded projects in institutional digital preservation and asset management, with a specific focus on strategies and procedures for long-term digital preservation and asset management. The project undertook to examine issues associated with digital asset management, with consideration being given to preservation issues in a further education environment.
Overall approach
The project was led by John Wheatley College with expertise in digital asset management provided by the Centre for Digital Library Research. The project examined digital asset management needs in John Wheatley College relating to documents supporting a pro-active approach to Freedom of Information legislation principle and flexible access to learning and teaching materials. The project manager and the Centre for Digital Library Research project officer consulted with strategic managers, administrative managers and support staff and the College’s ILT Champions teaching staff. The project officer researched issues and other projects working in the context of similar problems, and a database developer from the Centre for Digital Library research developed an initial database design and initial system development.
Findings
The project findings are contained in the toolkit . The main findings were that:
- Any development of a digital asset management system has two key components: a
strategy to manage the changes in the cultural and organisational "system" and a
piece of technical development or implementation to support this
- College requirements are that only a subset of College documents has long-term
retention requirements (e.g. learning materials are required only for the period in
which the learning outcomes supported are current)
- The process of gathering metadata from appropriate players requires simplification
so that as much as possible is generated automatically and options are available
through drop-down lists or other forms of controlled data entry
- The level of granularity of metadata required to suit College purposes lies at
document level rather than at document component (e.g. graphs) level
- Metadata capture and automation is the key not only to information retrieval but also
to the integration of information services (e.g. links between the UNIT-e MIS system
and the web server through the SQL database, and integration of document
publishing services with library management services)
Conclusions
The project has achieved the publication and dissemination of a toolkit supporting other colleges in approaching the development of a digital asset management strategy, and has supported the development of such a strategy in John Wheatley College. The project demonstrates that Further Education colleges can develop a digital asset management strategy supporting flexible access to learning and teaching materials, andpublication of documents supporting a pro-active approach to Freedom of Information legislation principles.