Vice President and Adobe Managing Director Katrina Troughton, described Western Sydney University as “the first Adobe Creative Campus University in New South Wales”. However, students can only access Adobe programs at certain times of the year.
Western students have access to Adobe’s Creative Cloud ecosystem, an extensive collection of Adobe powered programs like Photoshop, Premiere Pro and Audition. The partnership is generally beneficial for students, particularly those in leadership roles, Humanities and Communications Arts programs, visual and graphic design, film and other degrees.
The Adobe license becomes available to students only in an active teaching session, regardless of whether the student has an active study path or completed subject registration. To access their Adobe account, students must be enrolled in at least one subject during a current teaching period, with no exceptions allowed under business guidelines. The University’s I.T. Service Desk cannot activate Creative Cloud licenses before the semester starts and strictly enforces a “no exceptions” policy with such requests.
This leaves students to fend for themselves during the holiday periods. Even students who have completed a significant portion of their program are limited when out of semester. This is particularly difficult when building portfolios during vacation periods, learning the software and preparing for the semester.
These conditions have made it difficult for the W’SUP team who rely heavily on Adobe programs particularly when producing print editions. Creating W’SUP’s first 2025 print edition in time for the Autumn semester was difficult with the licensing dilemma.
The Student Publications Committee design officer Satya Patel jumped through several hoops to complete the edition in time for Welcome Week activities. Western’s I.T. Service Desk did not reinstate access upon request, despite the importance of the Creative Cloud software. “We don’t quit during the break,” Patel said.
However, the Adobe Creative Campus lead Kaitlin Hartley has pushed for change on behalf of the Committee. The Commitee was granted year-round access to Creative Cloud on the 31st of January 2025. The Committee is very grateful to Hartley and the Adobe team for this correction. Despite this, Creative Cloud and Adobe platforms remain inaccessible to the rest of the student population out of semester.
Graphic design student, Jed Quealey, is preparing for his second year and expressed frustration with this situation:
“It sucks that I can’t practice using Adobe products and services in the holidays given that they are the industry standard. It also sucks that I’m not able to explore my creative potential to the fullest.”
Patel added:
“Students always deserve access to quality creative software all year round, including the holidays.”
It’s clear the system is flawed. We have a long way to go before all students of “the first Adobe Creative Campus University in New South Wales” can take full advantage of this. Improvements have been made, but we are looking forward to more consistent access across the student cohort.
