Professional Work > Management and Production > Dartmouth Digital Communications > Image Management Discovery > Final Report

Final Report

May 14, 2002

Objectives (From Scope Statement) with Action Taken

  • Identify and consult with campus digital media user’s group.
  • Complete needs assessment for media creators, publishers, and archivists.
  • Evaluate vendor tools in light of needs assessment.
  • Determine resources required (hardware, software, personnel) to implement and maintain system (see below).

Deliverables (From Scope Statement) with Action Taken

The major deliverables for this project are:

  • Complete project plan and set of project documents.
  • Needs assessment report.
  • Full analysis of vendor tools.
  • User testing of demonstrated tools.
  • Develop workflow report.
    • See below
  • Final recommendations.
    • See below
  • Proposal for next phase.
    • See below

Workflow Recommendations for Three User Groups

Single Users

  • Population
    • Majority of project team.
  • Needs
    • Simple method for adding metadata to assets at time of creation.
    • Simple method for searching metadata in assets.
    • Assets are primarily image and QuarkXPress files.
  • Recommended solutions
    • Simplest: Add IPTC metadata to individual image files in Photoshop (File > File Info).
    • More flexible: Use a single-user application to manage desktop assets.
    • … to add IPTC metadata to multiple image files and to track most other types of digital assets and store metadata within a Cumulus catalog.

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Dual-user Workgroups

  • Population (potential): Office of Public Affairs, College Photographer, Photographic Records in Special Collections
  • Needs
    • All single-user needs, plus…
    • Multiple-user access to assets of various types (primarily images).
  • Recommended solutions: There are two workflow solutions for these needs: One is inexpensive, but limited in scope, and the other more flexible and more expensive.
  • Simple solution: The College Photographer adds IPTC metadata to original image assets and stores them on an external FireWire hard drive that, when filled, is swapped with another identical drive in the Photographic Records area in Special Collections. When the Photographic Records Specialist receives the full drive, he/she catalogs the assets, adding additional metadata to the IPTC fields, then moves the assets into deeper storage.Selected catalogs or Web galleries (with thumbnails) can be made available by the Photographic Records specialist for those who need to search for particular assets. Then, when an asset is selected, the original asset file can be retrieved and delivered from Photographic Records.This solution is acceptable when just two or three people need to search assets, with a single person serving as the primary gatekeeper — the one place from where assets are selected and delivered.
  • More flexible solution (and expensive): A workgroup server, residing in a single location, allows multiple users to archive, annotate, search, and retrieve simultaneously. This solution offers greater flexibility in providing access to metadata and assets, with user-definable levels of security. The cost, however, is much higher in terms of hardware and software, as well as system administration.

Below is a description of the simple workflow solution, along with a chart of required resources for both options:

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Preliminary Summary of Resource Requirements For Dual-user Workgroup DAM Options (Draft – 5/10/02)

Dual-user (Simple) Multi-user (Server) Hardware 2 – Existing CPUs, 2 – 40GB Firewire drives – for transfer of assets and catalogs between creator and archivist1 – 100GB drive for permanent storage 1 – Server with 100GB drive for permanent storage ~ $800 ~ $4000 Software 2 – Software ~ $150 (academic) 2 – Software 1 – Cumulus Workgroup server ~ $200 ~ $2000 Personnel Asset creator and archivist Asset creator and archivist ~ 5 hours per week ~ 5 hours per week System administrator ~ 40 hours for setup

~5 hours per week maintenance

Enterprise Developers and Users

  • Population
  • Needs
    • Evaluation to be performed on a case-by-case basis due to the unique needs for custom development projects.

Recommendation for Next Phase Projects

  • Dual-user workgroups
    • Meet to implement recommended workflow.
  • Ongoing networking among digital media creators on campus (Open)
    • Brown bag lunches (topics of common interest).
    • Mailing list/Weblog.
  • Enterprise users
    • Convene phase two project to evaluate specific needs and recommend solutions.

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  • Document History: Draft: 5/10/02 (JC); Update: 5/14/02 (JC)