Overview
Whether or not you manage a digital sign, you can create and share slides (images to display on a sign) with sign owners on campus.
Each digital sign on Brown's campus is owned and managed by the department or center who purchased the sign player; they decide what will be displayed on the sign. For that reason, it's not guaranteed that a department will display your content. However, we have a process for sharing slides and many sign owners do post shared content, especially at slower times throughout the year.
How it Works
To facilitate sharing sign content with other sign owners, we set up folders for each department in Google Drive in which that department can upload images.
An automatic email will go out to the email group of sign editors every Tuesday between 8am and 9am listing that week's new content if there is any - if not, no email will be sent.
How to Create Content
Most digital signs on campus have a 16:9 landscape ratio, so it’s best to design for that size. For example, 1920x1080 is a good pixel size. For more guidance on creating content, see our article Create Content for Your Digital Sign.
Give your file a meaningful file name, such as oit-event-2022june20-hackathon.jpg or psy101-class-promo.png. It's especially helpful to include the event date, if applicable, so editors know when to stop displaying the slide.
The script shares content based on last updated date, so if you are re-using an old file, open it in an image program and save a copy.
How to Upload Content
If your department does not have a folder, email oit@brown.edu to request one.
Upload slide images into your department's folder. (If you are a digital sign owner, you can browse the folders here.) To add, you can just drag and drop a file onto your folder or you can open the folder and click the New button > File Upload.
If others in your department will be creating content, feel free to add them as an editor of the folder, even if they don’t have access to post to the sign. We want to make this as easy as possible!
How to Find Content to Post to Your Sign
Every Tuesday morning between 8 and 9am, an automated email will go to the group with a summary of all images modified in the last week, with links to the images. If there are no new images, the email won't be sent.
Sign owners can also browse the folders here anytime if you're interested in finding older slides.
If you find content you’d like to use on your sign, just download the image and upload it to your sign as you would with your own images.
Suggestion:
If a slide is no longer appropriate to share (for example, a past event), we recommend periodically removing it from your folder. Even though it won’t get sent out, it will clutter up your other content when people browse your folder.