Course Title: Digital Asset Management

Part A: Course Overview

Course Title: Digital Asset Management

Credit Points: 12


Course Code

Campus

Career

School

Learning Mode

Teaching Period(s)

COMM2161

City Campus

Postgraduate

345H Media and Communication

Face-to-Face

Sem 2 2006

Course Coordinator: Tony Paice

Course Coordinator Phone: +61 3 9925 9838

Course Coordinator Email:tony.paice@rmit.edu.au


Pre-requisite Courses and Assumed Knowledge and Capabilities

None


Course Description

This course concentrates on the recently recognised problem of the management of multifarious and diverse digital assets in a multimedia context. Students will be introduced to methods and techniques associated with the management practices for those assets that they are creating in their work towards a final production. The creation of digital assets is time consuming and expensive and the environment in which they are used requires that careful control and management of the assets is maintained from the start. This has an immense budgetary effect on any project because unmanaged assets are lost assets.


Objectives/Learning Outcomes/Capability Development

In this course students will:
•    learn to identify characteristics of different file types, naming structures, filing systems and retrieval systems.
•    learn asset management software functions appropriate to multimedia assets.
•    develop the ability to recognise the requirements of their project in terms of types of files and come to a clear understanding of the needs for careful nomenclature to provide for effective storage and retrieval.
 •    be able to manage the many files that they have created in the wide variety of media that they are likely, from their practice, to have produced in preparation for their final project.


Graduates of this course will be able to manage their own digital assets and understand the requirements of managing large scale assets.


Overview of Learning Activities

This subject will be taught as a series of weekly hands-on tutorials preceded or followed by group discussions to ensure that they perceive both the theory and are directed in the practice of digital asset management. Learning activities will revolve around analyzing the requirements of different media assessing the timeframes associated with the production of those assets, identifying the costs associated with the production of those assets, and learning in tutorial and lab mode how to use the associated software.


Overview of Learning Resources

 The course will largely be taught in a Macintosh studio fully equipped with computer hardware and software. Students will also have to access library resources related to anatomy and movement or acquire their own similar resources.
Some References:
http://uniblogs.org/ Free blogging software for uni students
http://pandora.nla.gov.au/about.html  National Library of Australia’s Pandora Project
http://ahds.ac.uk/creating/guides Creating and Using Virtual Reality: a Guide for the Arts and Humanities. (Arts and Humanities Data Service)
http://www.guggenheim.org/variablemedia/ The Guggenheim Variable Media Initiative- website

Further references will be given to students during the course.


Overview of Assessment

Students are expected to participate in discussion on and off line. They must complete a series of short research reports to be presented in the tutorials.

1. The primary vehicle for assessment will be a student blog. All students will set up a blog in order to:
a. reflect on the impact of the course on their own practice. The level of engagement in this process will be assessed. 25%
b. provide access to a series of short research reports on subjects to be allocated for tutorials. These reports will also be presented to the class and their quality will be assessed. 25%
c. share research with other students and contribute to the collaborative conduct of the course. Level of participation will be assessed. 25%
2.   There will be a short answer test in the final week of the course that will assess the level of understanding of the material covered. 25%