Open University selects single content system

Course content management gets overhaul with new infrastructure

The Open University (OU) is investing £566,000 in content management and storage systems to improve its efficiency.

Jed Cawthorne, OU interim project manager for enterprise content management, says separate systems for handling digitally produced educational material were overloading the university’s IT resources with information.

‘Different units were doing different things for managing course content, and there was no enterprise-wide approach,’ he said.

‘It was decided to look for a university-wide document and digital asset management system that was not just for graphics and audio files, but for anything used for student teaching.’

Cawthorne says the decision to look for a single, consolidated system arose when two departments, running parallel projects to update separate, ageing content management IT, decided to join forces and pursue what was seen as a university-wide requirement.

‘We decided that the definition of the systems we wanted should include hierarchical storage, to enjoy the full benefits of full digital asset management,’ he said.

‘It is easier to automate the management of materials if the content management and storage is all in the one stack.’

The consolidated content and storage system, from vendor EMC and its content management subsidiary Documentum, will manage about 50TB of data from across the university, storing
newly created documents on fast and reliable disk storage formats.

‘If a document has been published, but not read for a month, we can write rules to move it from the fast, expensive disks to a less expensive one. And if it is archived and no one accesses it for a while it can be moved onto tape,’ said Cawthorne.

The new systems will link to the student online area for accessing course materials, while staff will be able to access the most up-to-date materials.

The OU hopes to have the systems deployed by the middle of this year.