Elevator Speech
PAM (Personal Asset Management) is a browser-based three-stacked sandwich of programs to help anyone manage their digital assets in a flexible and personally meaningful way.
At the bottom of the stack is the Personal Asset Storage System (PASS) which handles the collection and metadata tagging of the assets.
In the middle is the Personal Asset Organizer (PAO) which allows the user to connect, mash up, or generally edit as needed any of the artifacts in the Storage System. The Organizer then hands back to the Storage System the edited item to be tagged and stored as a new artifact with its own metadata. Out-of-the-box, the Organizer will only have an open source text editor, but other types of commercial and open source editing tools (for editing images, audio, video, etc.) can be built using the PAM API and added as plugins.
The third and last stack is the Personal Asset Publisher (PAP). This last layer of the sandwich allows the user to set granular permissions (private, personal, institutional, public, etc.) before sharing items with others over the internet. The Publisher is also capable of zipping and exporting any artifact and its associated assets (if it has any) and related permissions.
The complete package of PASS, PAO, and PAP is the Personal Asset Manager (PAM). PAM is not a new or unique application. Its power lies in standardizing the stacked modules and providing an intuitive interface for the average individual user. PAM accomplishes this by avoiding the traditional operating systems and working directly as a plugin for open source browsers. Thus, it can work just as well off the grid on local machines (laptops, tablets, thumb-drives) as it can in the cloud or as an SAS application.
Use Scenarios
- Scenario 1: User adds PAM as a plugin to her web browser. Three PAM icons appear on the browser task bar – Add | Edit | Share. User surfs the web and sees a page she wants to save. She clicks on the PAM-Add icon. A dialog box opens. The user can now 1) work on the storage’s folder structure, 2) save the web page (page and link) to one of the folders, or 3) upload a file from the local machine to one of the folder areas. When the user clicks to save her work, she is prompted with a metadata form to fill out required and optional fields. She clicks done to close the dialog box and continue browsing.
- Scenario 2: User wants to create or edit some work in her PAM storage area. She opens her browser and clicks on the PAM-Edit icon in the task bar. A dialog box opens showing her the folders in the storage area. She can either create a new item (document, image, video — depending on the edit tools that have been incorporated in her version of PAM), or edit an existing item (also depending on incorporated tools). At saving time the user is asked whether to Save the work, in which case the user is allowed to edit the optional portions of the items original metadata, or Save As, in which case the user must fill out a new form with required and optional fields.
- Scenario 3: User wants to share her work with others. One friend has a computer and broadband internet connections. The other does not. User opens her browser and clicks on the PAM-Share icon in the task bar. A dialog box opens showing her the folders in the storage area where she can select the item she wants to share. Another dialog box opens showing her the list of items associated with the item she wants to share (for example, a document with links to (or embeds of) various other items in the storage area. The form allows the user to select which of the associated items are alright to share. The form also allows her to create a url for the item (with or without password protection) and set the email address of the first person she wants to share it with. Alternatively, she can export the item as a zipped file which she can then download to another medium (local hard drive, thumb drive, or cd) or directly email it to the second person she wants to share it with.
Expanded Applications
- PAM for Education: Digital literacy and ePortfolio methodology can be combined to show students how to 1) maintain a well-organized archive of their work, 2) work with and edit artifacts in their storage system, and 3) prepare presentations of their work for submission to others and other institutional systems. This use would be possible with out-of-the-box open source PAM
- PAM for Home Assets: Moving companies frequently create detailed lists of a clients personal assets prior to packing and moving them. Using PAM “moving company x” can organize a client’s assets for its own reference as well as to provide the client with a copy of data. Thus, the clients would end up with a pre-populated PAM which they can continue to prune and grow as their asset collection changes. Additional commercial plugins might be developed to enhance PAM with such features as purchase receipts, user manuals, bar code recognition, and connectivity to insurance companies.
- PAM for Employee Assessment and Evaluation: Employee evaluations are frequently either too loose and informal, or based on rigidly defined formats that assume one-size-fits-all. A PAM-based evaluation system would allow employees to collect relevant material and produce personalized structures that more accurately reflect their skills and accomplishments. PAM-based evaluation and assessment systems can also be pre-loaded with information, documentation, and just-in-time support to help employees improve their work as well as produce more reliable evaluation data.
Stack Notes:
- PAM: browser-based (local, cloud)
- 3: PAP: share (url, email), export (zip)
- 2: PAO: edit (text, image, video, audio), connect (link, embed)
- 1: PASS: collect (files, links), metadata (info, tags, permissions)
