1	Planning, Prototyping and Piloting: digital asset management for higher education Scott E. Siddall Denison University Granville, Ohio
2	Roadmap Importance of planning and metadata The prototype approach Piloting faculty collections Shared collections CONTENTdm
3	Key points It’s more about people than technology Content specialists’ time, motivation to share, intellectual property Planning is critical We should consider all sorts of collections
4	Project Planning Metadata Content standards Institutional versus personal collections
5	Functions of metadata Describes item Facilitates management, description and preservation Enables discovery of item Facilitates management, archiving, preservation
6	Characteristics of metadata Granularity – one item, compound document, collection Describes originals and surrogates Stored separately or as part of digital surrogate Based on standards, schema Ex: library cataloging Ex: metadata in HTML document
7	Metadata schema METS – Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard http://www.log.gov/standards/mets/ (works with OAI) TEI – text Encoding Initiative http://www.tei-c.org/ VRA – Visual Resources Association http://vraweb.org/ EAD – Encoded Archival Description http://www.loc.gov/ead/ CDWA – Categories for the Description of Art http://www.getty.edu/research/institute/standards/cdwa/ DC – Dublin Core http://dublincore.org RDF – Resource Description Framework An XML standard
8	Mapping among metadata Each collection can define elements that map to another schema’s namespace Draw from different schema namespaces to optimize metadata for a collection or project
9	Dublin Core Title Subject/keywords Description Creator Publisher Contributor Date Resource Type Format Resource identifier Source Language Relation Coverage Rights management
10	The challenge of metadata Time it takes content specialists to create and proof key fields of metadata Balancing metadata quality with results Risks of not finding materials Risks of “dirty” results Perfect can be the enemy of good Ease of use for clients
11	Plan first, then digitize What is the purpose of the collection? Audience, distribution, uses, needs analysis Plan metadata to meet those needs Set specifications for digital formats Ex: 1600 by 1200 pixels, 24 bit color Ex: Streaming video codec and framerate specifications Prototype or pilot Working model or experiment?
12	Prototyping a collection Technical issues: Selection of system; staffing implications Open web-based, required plug-ins or platform specific client Server and network capacity planning Single project technology, or a campus standard Legal issues IP rights management Who enforces? Document all procedures; keep documents up-to-date Usability: Gather feedback from contributors, users of content Institutional collection? Sustaining budget, especially commitment to staffing
13	The Realia Project http://realiaproject.org
14	Selection of technology Buy License (annual) Build (and rebuild) Rent (ASP model) Adapt (open source installation)
15	To license or build? About managing: Costs Control Expectations
16	To license or build? The case for licensing: Good commercial software meets 80% of your needs You have less control Share in development and support costs with other customers Pay corporate profit Licensing and support can be expensive Vendor upgrades and inflexibility can be a problem
17	To license or build? The case for building: Homegrown software can meet 90+% of your needs You have full control You have full responsibility design, programming, testing, documentation, upgrades, support… Costs can be hidden and unpredictable Sell/share later? Core competency of our institutions?
18	Piloting faculty collections Pilot: tentative model for future experimentation http://enhanced-learning.org/mellon/dam/ Oceanography pilot at Denison http://content.cache.denison.edu/ Challenges Digitization to standards Creation of useful metadata; role of others
19	New trends Need easier input methods for metadata Voice annotations New indexing schemes Reusable learning objects qualify as collections Anything used in a course Content Activity Assessment
20	Content in course management systems
21	Sharing faculty collections http://sharedcollections.org Aspirations: More diverse curricular material Organize and find your materials and others’ Reduce reinventing the wheel Repurpose, create linkages among disciplines Present within and beyond class Preserve content and organization Enhanced learning outcomes
22	Rights management for collections The Creative Commons offers many carefully conceived licensing models For use by anyone – faculty and institutions http://creativecommons.org/learn/
23	CONTENTdm http://contentdm.com Capture, index, store, query, display Uses flexible text metadata fields to enable cross collection searching Works with any file format that can be web browsed (mime type) Controlled vocabularies Compound documents Import and batch additions Review before commit process Export metadata in XML, SGML, ASCII Three levels of security: server admin, collection admin, staff Distributed Acquisition Stations Service images, thumbnails, full resolution option Boolean searches, query builder tool Save search sets; export directly into PowerPoint
24	CONTENTdm - Product Elements
25	Acquisition Station “Spreadsheet view” Enter metadata for groups of items “Fill” functions for global editing Hold or delete individual or multiple items in one operation
26	Acquisition Station “Media editor” Add or edit individual item metadata Customize thumbnail images Validity checking for controlled vocabularies
27	Edit site “look & feel”
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