Digital Asset Management

Digital assets are becoming an increasing part of information resources in an organisation. Historically the assets have been images, but the growth in podcasts, videos and audio files is creating a larger range of functionality that needs to be managed. To make effect use of these resources, the right version (i.e. Rendition) needs to be available for the device that is being used.

The Oracle ECM software is able to create multiple renditions with different graphical aspects from a single source file. By adding the appropriate metadata, the collection of files can be tagged in order that they can be processed together as a set or processed individually.

As the number of assets grows, the challange of finding an existing asset and avoiding the creation of duplicates becomes more complex. The ability to search for digital files using metadata values as criteria can rapidly produce reasonable potential selections. When dealing with images, if user is then able to browse through the available thumbnails, the required file can be determined. When the results are podcasts and audio files, there is no "Thumbnail" equivalent so even more value is placed on metadata tagging in order to accurately identify the candidate file.

In a number of business scenarios, it is appropriate to create groups of image files, so that they can be processed as a set. Oracle ECM provides this capability through the use of a content basket. The collection of files can then be extracted or downloaded for sharing with third parties who do not have access to the repository.

Digital files, like other items of content need to conform to agreed lifecylces so that they are reviewed and updated when appropriate. In some situations, these digital files are subject to copyright restrictions that will could limit their type of use, require an acknowledgement to be used (e.g. Watermark) or limited their use for a particular time period. The functionality provided by Oracle ECM enables all of these scenarios to be addressed.