The education sector is experiencing a teacher retention crisis, with vacancy rates in England reaching a record high in 2024. According to a survey published by the Department for Education, one of the biggest attributing factors is increased workload.
Finding a solution for managing workload more effectively has become a top priority. As well as helping to retain teachers, improved workload management boosts staff wellbeing and contributes to delivering a higher standard of education.
In today’s highly tech-focused world, there are many opportunities to implement technology solutions for more efficient working processes. For teachers and lecturers struggling to manage learning materials and student projects, education IT tools are crucial. Using online lesson planning tools and AI-powered software to create learning materials can save significant amounts of time.
Another IT solution to consider implementing in your education setting is digital asset management (DAM). Schools, colleges and universities are driving significant efficiencies using a DAM system.
Implementing a DAM system in your education institution is a straightforward solution that will quickly deliver a series of powerful benefits. These include:
A DAM system allows you to store and manage all your learning materials in one central place. With cloud based DAM, the learning materials created across your education setting can be accessed from anyone with designated access rights, from any location. You can easily set students up with access to view files, while providing the relevant staff with access to edit files.
There is an advanced search functionality in DAM that allows users to quickly locate the learning materials they need. Automated metadata tagging of files streamlines the process of saving and organising files, instead of requiring staff to manually do these time-consuming admin tasks.
The central repository also means that learning materials are readily available for students to access. This means their teacher or lecturer does not need to spend time emailing materials to their classes. They also won’t have to deal with email requests from students or other teachers requesting learning materials or project work.
Before staff create new learning materials, they will be able to search the DAM system for any existing materials that have already been created on a specific topic. The learning material they require may already have been created by another member of staff or there could be a similar topic that can be quickly adapted.
When teachers and lecturers are busy delivering classes, there is little time to collaborate with other members of staff. With DAM, departments can set up their own folder hierarchies to collaborate on files and share work. This will be particularly helpful for staff who deliver the same courses or who share the same classes.
The version control features of DAM also ensure that there is no confusion around the latest version of materials. DAM shows data such as last editing date and who the last editor was, and you can also set alerts to flag when learning materials will need to be updated.
When students are working on projects, the last thing teachers want is to be going backwards and forwards with email updates or even worse - paper documents! With project files uploaded onto DAM, teachers will have real-time access to files that students are working on. They can assign deadlines, provide comments within DAM and easily monitor progress.
When it comes to submitting work to exam boards, the files will be stored in DAM, ready to upload to the relevant website.
Now you have discovered some of the ways that DAM can benefit your education setting, you’re probably eager to find out more. These are just a few examples of how DAM can support teachers and students but there are many more benefits to unlock.
If you would like to book a demo or have a chat with a member of our team, contact us today.
