5 Benefits of DAM for Higher Education

This article originally appeared in our technology partner, MediaValet’s Blog, and we think our readers will find it useful.

From Ivy League schools to community colleges, the education sector is becoming more competitive than ever, constantly battling for funding and new students. As competition increases, having a significant digital presence can be key in driving recruitment, engaging students and attracting donors. But, the larger your digital presence, the more content you need to be creating, which often leads to an overflow of digital assets and no scalable way to manage them.

Implementing a digital asset management system (DAM) helps universities and colleges to better manage their content and establish a solid foundation for their long-term digital strategy.

Here are 5 benefits of a DAM system that are allowing leading universities and colleges to maximize the ROI of their content and increase the overall productivity of their departments.

Removing Bottlenecks

With asset requests constantly coming in from the marketing department, the alumni association and other departments, there are frequent bottlenecks as schools’ IT departments or digital teams try to track down the correct assets in the formats requested. Many schools today are using a DAM to remove these bottlenecks by empowering departments and individual users to access a single media library, where they can easily search for and share (approved) photos, videos and more, without having to contact the IT department.

Giving Immediate Access to Print-Ready Files

On a similar note, digital asset management systems are also helping schools make on-brand print content, such as brochures, newsletters, reports and recruitment material, widely available. Anyone attending tradeshows, info nights, etc. are able to easily access and share the correct print-ready files with their printing agencies directly from the DAM. This ensures that only the most up-to-date documents are being printed, avoiding an embarrassing mistake or a costly reprint.

Managing Stakeholder Rights & Permissions

Universities and colleges can have thousands, even tens of thousands, of faculty members, staff, students and partners, all with different needs regarding the school's files and brand assets. With an enterprise DAM, this is easily handled. Schools are able to set permissions for different departments, seniorities, or any other criteria of the school’s choosing, establishing limitations for each. This way, only people with appropriate access can view, download or update specific sets of assets. Permission access can be set manually or using Single-Sign-On services, such as Azure Active Directory, SAML or Shibboleth.

Tracking Individual Asset Rights

Each year, leading universities collect a flurry of photos and videos from fundraisers, speaker conferences and commencement ceremonies. With so many digital assets being collected, it can be hard to keep track of what rights are attached to which photos or videos. With a DAM in place, schools are able to attach the photographer, expiration date and usage rights directly to each asset, while also linking it to the appropriate model release form, ensuring that there's no illegal use of assets.

Providing Access to Class Material

Taking courses either fully or partially online is becoming more and more common, and many schools are using their DAM to aggregate and manage online course material. They use it to share relevant material with other professors and even allow their students to download the course outlines, assignments, video material and readings, saving time and ensuring consistency in classes taught by multiple instructors.

These are only a few examples of how colleges & universities are using DAM. If you’re ready to take a deeper look at digital asset management best practices and evaluate if you're ready for a DAM, here's how MediaValet enables schools to better manage their content: Click below to learn more about Digital Asset Management for Higher Education.