Indiana University expands creative possibilities with Adobe Creative Cloud and Adobe Stock

Alumni of Indiana University include Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists, Nobel Prize-winning scientists, best-selling authors, CEOS, and even a vice president. Indiana University takes pride in the way that it supports students across nine campuses with innovative teaching and modern tools that help them pursue their passions.

As an Adobe Creative Campus, Indiana University provides Adobe Creative Cloud licenses to more than 110,000 students, faculty, and staff across all campuses at no charge. Moreover, Indiana University became the first campus to adopt Adobe Creative Cloud Enterprise Pro, which gives all users unlimited access to more than 200 million photos, illustrations, and graphics through Adobe Stock.

“We want to transform teaching and learning for faculty and students through innovative uses of technology,” says Julie Johnston, interim associate vice president for learning technologies. “By offering unlimited access to industry-leading creative tools from Adobe, we do exactly that. And as higher education shifts even more toward digital learning, our new Adobe agreement helps ensure access to the best tools for students and faculty alike — not to mention it reinforces our commitment to digital fluency.”

Credit: Indiana University Studios.

Expanding digital skills using Adobe Stock

While Adobe Creative Cloud apps are well-utilized in art, design, and media programs, Indiana University believes that understanding how to communicate in an increasingly digital world will better prepare all students for success in modern workplaces. Whether a student is creating conference presentations, explaining results to co-workers, or connecting with wider audiences through social media, digital skills are important for every career.

“More companies are creating jobs that have never existed: social media coordinator, web respondent, content creator,” says Justin Hodgson, associate professor of English and Adobe Education Leader at Indiana University. “By 2030, 85 percent of all jobs will be ones that don’t currently exist. We need to make sure that we prepare all students to have marketable digital skills to do the work of the future.”

Indiana University sees Adobe Stock as one important way to help students take their digital skills to the next level. Creators don’t need to worry about licensing rights, so they can share their work more readily. Easy search filters enable students and faculty to find just the right asset from a library of millions.

“When students work with better quality media, such as high-quality images that capture exactly the idea that they want to express, they get more excited about their work,” explains Hodgson. “They’ll put more effort into projects, take pride in their content, and share it with others. With Adobe Stock, we see better work being delivered.”

As part of his fellowship for eLearning Design & Innovation, Adam Maksl, an Adobe Education Leader focuses on online education and bringing new learning technologies into the classroom. He agrees that Adobe Stock has the potential to help both students and faculty create work that they can be proud of.

“When people think of stock images, they often think about business professionals sitting in a fake office and laughing,” says Maksl, Associate Professor of Journalism and Media at Indiana University Southeast. “But Adobe Stock offers so much more variety. For instance, a biology professor can search through a wide selection of anatomy diagrams. This helps faculty easily create more engaging and understandable presentations for students.”

Not only are the stock images varied, they are also very easy to use. “Whether people work in Adobe Creative Cloud apps or Microsoft Office 365, they can connect to countless images just by clicking on the Adobe Stock menu,” says Johnston. “We’re so excited about how this gives our students the ability to present themselves in a truly professional manner.”

Professional-looking results for marketing students

Sarah Smith-Robbins has long promoted the role of creativity in her marketing classes. One class, Creativity and Communication, focuses specifically on the importance of harnessing creative solutions to solve big business problems. For years, Smith-Robbins taught students to use Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, and Adobe InDesign to edit photos, create presentations, and animate images.

When Indiana University became an Adobe Creative Campus, she began encouraging students to explore different ways of expressing their ideas. Several students learned to work with Adobe Dimension to create 3D product models for advertising images. Others created videos with Adobe Premiere Rush.

“Being an Adobe Creative Campus really levels the playing field for students because everyone can work with the same tools,” says Smith-Robbins. “Now with Adobe Stock, the difference I’m seeing is night and day. It goes back to having the right tool for the job. Students can find high-quality images that perfectly express their ideas, so they’re delivering much more professional results.”

Vanessa Soriano, a senior marketing major with a minor in fashion design, works with Adobe Creative Cloud every day. She gathers her school and personal projects into a graphic design portfolio that has helped her put her best foot forward for internships and jobs. She is particularly proud of her final project for Smith-Robbins’ class. Soriano invented a music and art festival and used Adobe InDesign to create a unique brand guide that captures the spirit of this festival. Adobe Stock was used for silhouette images and icons in the poster and accompanying festival map.

Vanessa Soriano’s Into Eden Festival Tour Lineup poster created using Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign for her Creativity and Communications class.

Varun Soni, a junior majoring in marketing business analytics and data tech management, also started using Adobe Creative Cloud before taking Smith-Robbins’ class. Sunni was primarily self-taught, using Creative Cloud apps to make signs and logos for student organizations.

“Adobe Creative Cloud is much more intuitive, creative, and customizable compared to other solutions,” says Soni. “I recently got a job as a marketing assistant, and I think that my experience and skills in Adobe Creative Cloud helped me land the position.”

Varun Soni’s illustration created using Adobe Illustrator for a project in his Creativity and Communication class. The illustration was included in two-page magazine layout was done in Adobe InDesign.

Communicating science through media

Parul Khurana spends much of her days focused on administration in her role of associate dean of the School of Natural Science and Mathematics at Indiana University East. But, as an associate professor, she also teaches a wide range of biology courses, like botany, cell biology, and genetics. She first started working with Adobe Creative Cloud apps when she was a student, using Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator to create graphs and label or annotate microscopic images used in research publications.

As a professor, Khurana frequently uses Adobe Acrobat to create handouts and worksheets for her classes. But she also introduced her students to the idea of making their own presentations and communicating their findings to audiences. As part of her capstone biology course, Khurana created a project that invites students to create a PSA about a topic of interest related to biology, such as disease prevention, environmental awareness, or even pet health.

For years, Khurana asked students to create a slide presentation. But students started asking if they could use video or animation to better illustrate their ideas. Khurana embraced the idea, changing the project requirements to allow for a greater variety of media. Many students now use solutions such as Adobe Creative Cloud Express to create dynamic PSAs that speak to their audiences.

“Scientific communication is so important,” says Khurana. “I used to focus on speaking and presentations, but today digital communication is much more important to students. Adobe Creative Cloud helps us develop skill sets that help students succeed in the future.”

Encouraging digital skills across the university

Indiana University works with teams across the university and campuses to promote Adobe Creative Cloud and support greater adoption. One advertising class is working on a project that will help promote Adobe Stock to students. Adobe Creative Cloud apps are featured at the university’s Idea Garden, which is a place for students to be creative, explore, and collaborate using advanced technology.

IU Media School advertising class Adobe Stock promotion group project by Erin Barrett, Eric Burton, Anthony Gosling, Emma Rumpelt, and Taylor Uselman.

The Center of Excellence for Women & Technology holds regular events to help teach students and faculty how to use technology. From learning how to use Adobe Dreamweaver to creating a resume in Adobe InDesign to harnessing creativity in the classroom across disciplines, the program helps to increase digital skills through Adobe Creative Cloud.

“There’s often still a stereotype that Adobe Creative Cloud is just for designers, but we’re trying to educate more people that it’s important for everyone’s career success,” says executive director Maureen Biggers. “Whether you work in biology or business, English or economics, everyone needs to create resumes, write blogs, and communicate ideas in new ways. We encourage students to learn as much as they can and build digital skills that will translate to success in the workplace.”