MediaBeacon Admin User Overview

This document provides an overview of the MediaBeacon digital asset management system and its use here at Duke for departmental administrators.

 

About the Service

The Interface

 

Functionality and Features

Uploading Assets

Downloading Assets

Searching Metadata

Adding or Updating Metadata

Collections

External Portals

About the Service

When to use MediaBeacon

Assets should be stored in MediaBeacon at the completion of a project so that they can easily be referenced or reused in the future.

 

MediaBeacon Documentation

This document is an overview of the features and functionality that are available to departmental administrator. For additional information about MediaBeacon, visit support documentation.

The Interface:

 

 

1. Departmental or MediaBeacon Logo: Clicking this will reset your search
2. Shopping Cart: Allow you to view the assets you added to your cart
3. Upload: Will upload assets to your upload folder
4. Collections: Shows created and shared collections
5. Notifications: Will show you the latest activity
6. Groups: (aka “ACL List”): Allows you to switch between your access groups
7. Clear Search: Clears your search. Your current search criteria will appear to the left of this icon
8. Results: The number of results in your current search
9. View Selector: Allows you to switch between Infinite Scroll View, Thumbnail View, and List View
10. Search: Search entire folder, search within current search results or create an advanced search filter
11. Directory Search: Allows you to browse assets by their containing folder. The Index folder is your main department

folder and selecting/highlighting the Index folder name in the left pane will show all your assets.

12. Filter Search – Create Date: Allows you to browse by the asset creation date
13. Filter Search – Format: Allows you to browse by the asset format
14. Filter Search – Subject: Allows you to browse by the asset subject (from Dublin Core metadata)
15. Filter Search – Color Profile: Allows you to browse by colors in the asset
16. Filter Search – Format: Allows you to browse by the asset resolution
17. Manage – External portals: A collection of assets that allows visual access and download permission to assets for non-users of MediaBeacon.

 

Uploading Assets

Create or select the destination folder in the directory search then drag the folder or images on top of the folder icon or the main area under the Infinite Scroll View.

Note: If you upload using the uploads button, or a folder isn’t selected first, the assets will be placed in the upload folder under your NetID. You can then ‘Move’ them to another folder.  Using ‘Copy’ will create a duplicate.

 

Downloading Assets

To download a single asset, right click and select download. To download multiple assets, you can create a collection or add them to your cart.  You can also right click on a folder in the directory search to download a folder of assets.

 

To download a single asset, hover over an asset and select Download icon.

 

To download multiple assets, select the assets and select Download.

 

 

You can also hover over a folder in the Directory Search to download a folder of assets.

 

 

You can click on an asset and download it.

 

For video downloads, you can download a ‘Selected Portion’ of the video by using the Custom tab and adjusting the Start Time and Stop Time.

You can also trim the video  from the Preview and select Download, which will automatically set the Start Time and Stop Time based on the Timeline.

 

Note: To see the actual Start Time and Stop Time from the Timeline, you need to select Entire Video and then Selected Portion again.

Searching Metadata 

You can search all of your assets.

 

If you select the downward caret, you can toggle the ‘Search within current results’ to build on each search, otherwise each search will be new. You can see each search criteria to the right.

 

 

 

You can select Advanced Search to create search filters.

  Adding or Updating Metadata

If you’d like to add additional metadata to your asset, click on the asset and complete the desired fields under Dublin Core metadata.

 

If you’d like to add metadata to multiple assets at the same time, select the desired assets then right click and select “Bulk Edit”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Collections

You can create collections by selecting multiple assets and then right-click to bring up the menu and select “Share” then “Save Collection”. You can then name your collection and decide which groups you want to share. Select “Add To Collection” to add assets to an existing collection. You can view your collections by clicking the “load collections” button at the top of the interface. You must have nothing selected for the “load collections” button to be visible.

External Portals

External Portals are used to share assets, or a collection of assets, via publishing to a public S3 bucket. On creation of the external portal, a link is generated which can be shared to users (including external users) without needing a MediaBeacon account/license. Users accessing the link can select which assets to download.

 

Attention:

1. An External Portal can contain a maximum of 1000 assets.
2. If a download takes longer than 29 seconds, it will not be zipped. Instead, all assets will be downloaded as original (non-zipped) files.  

 

To Create a Single-use Portal:

1. Select the assets you’d like to include in your portal

2. Select “External Portal” from the “Share” menu (right corner of screen)

3. Name your portal

4. Type a description (optional)

5. Set the expiration date

6. Review the optional fields and complete if desired

7. You can type emails into the form at the bottom or simply copy the URL of the portal

once created and email that

 

To Create a Long-term Portal (i.e. a portal you may need to update in the future):

1. Select the assets you’d like to include in your portal

2. Select “Save Collection”

3. Name your collection with a name that will correspond to your eventual portal

4. Load your collection (if it’s not still loaded)

5. Right click on an asset to choose “Select All”

6. Follow the procedure above

To edit your portal:

1. Load the corresponding collection

2. Edit the collection (delete, add, etc)

3. When you are done editing, Select All

4. Select “External Portal” from the “Share” menu (right corner of screen)

5. Click on “Republish Portal”

6. Select the corresponding portal to update

7. Select “Current Selection” to replace all the existing assets with your new selection

8. Complete the other optional information as desired

 

External Portal Metadata Options:

1. Create Portal: Creates a new portal
2. Republish Portal: Updates an existing portal
3. Asset List: Indicates the number of assets you are about to publish in your portal
4. Name: (Required field) Name you give your portal. This will not be visible to users—it is only for your and your editing team’s reference.
5. Description: Any information you’d like to note about this portal. This will not be visible to users—it is only for your and your editing team’s reference.
6. Allow Downloads: Toggling this option on will allow users who visit your portal the option to download full resolution version of the files.
7. Expiration Date: Choose a date when the portal will be unpublished and all the files it contains deleted from Amazon storage. Note: this will not delete the original files on MediaBeacon that were used to create the portal.
8. Terms and Conditions: Any information you’d like to share with your viewers that will clarify the usage rights they have for these files.
9. Access Restriction: Use this field to manually select a password that will be required for viewers to open the portal. You will need to share this password with your users in advance.
10. Static Images:

1. 1. Banner: Top of page banner. This image will appear above the Portal’s Action bar.
   2. Logo: Replaces the MediaBeacon Logo with one of your choice
   3. Favicon: This option allows you to replace the tiny default graphic that is shown in the browser tab for viewers of the portal.

11. Fields to Display: By default, only File Name is displayed with the images in the portal; however, you can include additional metadata fields. In “Select a Field”, type the name of any other metadata fields you would like viewers to see. All metadata you add here will be searchable by viewers of your portal and help them find relevant assets in the portal. Below are examples of additional metadata fields you can include. Contact the MediaBeacon services team for questions about other metadata options.

 

Note: When searching, the results shown are in schema format. For Dublin Core, look for schemas with dc in the URL, for example http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/publisher.

 

12. 1. Description
    2. Creator
    3. Subject (This corresponds to Keywords in the Dublin Core metadata section)
    4. File Size
    5. Title
    6. Date
    7. Date entered
    8. File modified date
    9. Date entered
    10. Contributor
    11. Publisher

 

13. Sharing: Here you can enter email addresses for current MediaBeacon users, and they will receive an email with the link to the portal.

 

End-User External Portal View

 

 

 

1. Static Image: Goes length of page (cannot customize)
2. Logo: Branded logo that replaces the default MediaBeacon logo.
3. Search: Search within filename or other metadata selected for inclusion in the portal
4. Page View Options: 
   1. Portal Infinite Scroll View: This view is the default for the portal and may be chosen with the second to the rightmost button in the title bar
   2. Portal Tile View:  This view allows the user to see the filename and included metadata for each asset. This view may be chosen with the rightmost button in the title bar.
   3. Portal List View: This view allows the user to see the filename and metadata included for each asset as a list. This view may be chosen with the rightmost button in the title bar.
   4. Portal Asset View: Clicking on an asset will show a preview of the asset and available metadata. Paging between assets is also possible with the left and right icons that hover on the edges of the preview.