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Campus IT

uWaterloo and Multimedia Asset Management: Identifying Interests


Interest in Multimedia Asset Management systems (also called Digital Asset Management, or DAM) has been identified for investigation to learn where needs for such systems exist and how collaboration, possibly through creation of a campus project, might benefit uWaterloo. A DAM system provides a way to store, tag, categorize, search, reuse, and serve up multimedia assets such as audio, video, images, and so on. As these assets are reused, access control (who can see or edit them) and delivery become part of the process, and may be part of a DAM system as well.
It seems a good start to assemble interested people from across uWaterloo to learn about current activities and needs. Information gathered from the session will be presented to the University Committee on Information Systems and Technology, UCIST, for discussion. Depending upon the outcomes of the meetings and discussions, a project may be struck to help progress the activities in a strategic way to benefit the interested parties and uWaterloo as a whole.


Session topics

There is interest on campus to build or acquire a Digital Asset Management (DAM) system. Given the potential size and complexity of a DAM system, a single system seems to make sense. Determining University directions for such a system will encourage groups to work together to provide one for the institution’s needs. This information sharing session is intended to discover what anticipated uses exist for a DAM system, what activities are underway, and how areas might benefit from collaboration.

Topics to address at the Multimedia Asset Management Interest meeting include:

  1. What are your multimedia assets? E.g., photographs, graphics, audio and video recordings.
  2. What do you need to do with these multimedia assets? E.g., use photographs for print publications, graphics for websites, video recordings for education, audio recordings to preserve as historical records.
  3. What solutions are you using now for your multimedia assets?
  4. For how long do you typically need to keep these assets?
  5. Have you investigated DAM solutions, and if so, what have you found?
  6. Are you aware of what other universities are using or planning for DAM implementations?
  7. Anything else?

If you are interested in participating held on Tuesday, October 18th, 10:00 – 11:30, MC2009, please contact bob.hicks@uwaterloo.ca.

Last updated on October 5, 2011.