Teaching digital asset management in a higher education setting

According to a recent IDC report (Gantz, J and Reinsek, D. The digital universe decade – Are you ready? IDC Iview, May 2010) between now and 2020, the amount of digital information created and replicated in the world will grow to an almost inconceivable 35 trillion gigabytes as all major forms of media – voice, TV, radio, print – complete the journey from analog to digital’. This means that in 2020 the digital universe will be 44 times as large as it was in 2009. Public, for-profit and cultural heritage organizations are being deluged with rich media digital resources, while facing fiscal challenges. Digital asset management (DAM) professionals provide the skills needed to find efficient solutions for storage, retrieval and dissemination of these files. Most learn the profession on the job and through informal education such as webinars, podcasts, blogs, white papers and conferences. There are programs and courses emerging in schools of higher education. This article discusses the development and teaching of a course in DAM offered through the Columbia University Information and Digital Resource Management program of the School of Continuing Education. The author describes how the syllabus was developed, content of the course, assignments, readings and the use of collaborative tools to simulate the way that professionals learn from each other.