Digital Asset Management (DAM) Implementation

Kaplan Higher Education Corporation

Implement a Digital Asset Management (DAM) System

Project Overview

THE OPPORTUNITY

Kaplan, Inc., the parent company of Kaplan Higher Education Corporation (KHEC) decided to implement a Digital Asset Management (DAM) system to aid in their curriculum content workflow. Usage of the system would improve the curriculum publishing workflow, reduce production cycle times, meet market demands, and speed to market.

THE HURDLE

Because the KHEC Curriculum Production Team was in charge of storing and maintaining all curriculum files and blended course content, they were tasked with helping to implement the new system. The team was small, consisting of three people who never used a DAM system before.

THE SOLUTION

Kaplan, Inc. hired a project manager and brought in their internal IT team to assist with the implementation. They worked with the KHEC Curriculum Production Team on design, development, training, and roll out for the system.

DETAILS

Project Length: 1 year
Team: 8 people
Role: Production Designer and Digital Asset Management (DAM) Specialist
My Contributions:

DIGITAL ASSET MANAGEMENT

COLLABORATION

TAXONOMY

USER ACCEPTANCE TESTING

TRAINING

Discover & Learn

RESEARCH PERFORMED

Prior to the Digital Asset Management (DAM) system implementation, the following items and questions needed to be addressed:

  1. DAM System: OpenText (formerly known as Artesia) was the DAM system that was selected.

  2. Process and System Overview: What new systems are involved in the curriculum content workflow? What role will each system play and how do they work?

  3. DAM System Requirements

    1. Assets: What files need to be moved from the company network into the system?

    2. Metadata: What data needs to be associated to the files?

    3. Workflow/Lifecycle: What is the process for uploading files to the DAM and associating metadata? Once the files are in the DAM, how can they be used/repurposed?

    4. Security Policies: What security policies need to be set for the files in the DAM to determine how they are used?

  4. DAM Testing: How will the system be tested?

Strategize & Plan

PLANNING PERFORMED

After the initial items were addressed and answered, the KHEC Curriculum Production Team (which I was a member of) was able to start strategizing about how the files would be moved from the company network into the DAM and what metadata needed to be captured.
Note: The curriculum files were for both nonblended (on-campus) and blended (on-campus with an online portion) courses.

1. Process and System Overview

  1. Nonblended: The nonblended course workflow involved the curriculum files being stored in the DAM and separately uploaded to Microsoft SharePoint for instructors to access. There were no integrations involved.

  2. Blended: The blended course workflow included three main systems that integrated with each other (snapshot below).

    1. DAM: The DAM served as the system that stored all rich media and curriculum files, (nonblended and blended) essentially acting as the single source of truth.

    2. ECMS: The ECMS stored all of the blended learning course content (reading assignments, discussion questions, assignments, etc.).

    3. LMS: The LMS is the system the students would use to access and interact with the online portion of their courses.

2. DAM System Requirements (snapshot below)

  1. Assets: The curriculum files that needed to be moved from the network into the DAM included program and course documents and media (games, images, and video).

  2. Metadata: We identified three categories of information and files that needed to be imported to the DAM. These categories translated into three metadata models.

  3. Workflow/Lifecycle: The files were planned to be imported to the DAM based on the type of program and area of speciality. When a file is imported to the DAM and metadata is associated to it, it is considered an “asset”. The asset goes through a lifecycle.

  4. Security Policies: The security policy assigned to a file determined how it could be used.

nu_creativeoperations_project_page_DAM_implementation_1500x1000_assets.jpg
nu_creativeoperations_project_page_DAM_implementation_1500x1000_metadata_models.jpg
nu_creativeoperations_project_page_DAM_implementation_1500x1000_workflow_lifecycle.jpg
nu_creativeoperations_project_page_DAM_implementation_1500x1000_security_policies.jpg

Testing

User Acceptance Testing (UAT) had to be completed in the DAM QA environment before all system configurations were moved into Production.

Final Implementation

Once testing was successfully completed, we were able to move into the DAM Production environment. The Production environment is where I imported all of the files from the company’s network. Moving off of the network into the DAM, resulted in the following:

  • The structure and configuration of three different metadata models was completed

  • 1,117 DAM course IDs were created in preparation for the import of course assets

  • More than 5,000 curriculum assets from the network were imported, assigned metadata, and organized into the DAM system

  • DAM search optimization was increased by creating 1,117 saved searches within the system that allowed users to locate files twice as fast

  • DAM documentation was created and trainings were held for the Program and Instructional Design Teams

  • A total of 53,164 course assets were maintained in the DAM system (including versioning)

KEY SOFT SKILLS

The soft skills utilized in the success of the DAM system implementation were:

  • Adaptability

  • Collaboration

  • Critical Thinking

  • Decision-Making

  • Flexibility

  • Organization

  • Problem-Solving

  • Teamwork

  • Time Management