The document discusses various issues related to licensing electronic resources for institutions. It addresses questions around who can access resources like students at partner institutions, alumni, commercial partners, and distance learners. It also discusses site definitions, authorised users, interactions with ERMs, storing historical license information, and interpreting licenses. Finally, it considers trends in how universities operate with partnerships and potential future models that licenses need to support like virtual campuses.

1. Thorny issues in licensing: an
institution’s view
Louise Cole
Senior Information Advisor (Collections)
Kingston University
JIBS-Eduserv Seminar, Wednesday 16 June 2010

2. Summary
What do licenses do?
Partnerships: franchised
and validated
Joint courses
Commercial partnerships
Alumni
Walk-in users
Distance learners
Site definitions
Collaboration between
non-commercial partners
Interaction with ERM
Storing licenses
Historical information
Issues of interpretation
Some trends in how
universities operate
In the future …

3. What do licenses do?
Set rules for who can use
… what they can do and
how they can do it
… what they can’t do
Provide an agreed
contract for use between
both parties
Model licenses generally
have the same basic list
of clauses:
• Licensor responsibilities
• Licensee responsibilities
• Security (who can use and
how)
• Payment
• Terms and termination

4. Who …
Current teaching, research and support staff on the
University payroll or on honorary contracts
Teaching staff teaching franchised or validated courses at
other institutions
Support staff (e.g. librarians) supporting students on
franchised or validated programmes of study
Students who are based at other institutions and following
franchised or validated programmes
UK or non-UK
Alumni, start-up companies, commercial partnerships,
academic partnerships, NHS …

5. Partnerships
Franchised
Where the University has
designed a course and
agrees that a partner college or
other organisation can deliver it
on their behalf
Students are registered at the
awarding institution but wholly
or partly taught elsewhere
Have access to all the
resources of the institution to
which they are registered
Validated
Where the University agrees
that a course designed and
delivered by a partner college
or other organisation meets the
standards required for the
award of a University
qualification
Students are registered at the
partner college or organisation
No access to awarding
institution resources (except as
walk-in users)

6. Joint courses
University may co-run a course with one or more
institutions (sometimes another HE institution, or one in
FE, or some other scheme)
Some examples exist where courses are shared between
more than one institution (and students are ‘home’ at one
and have rights as student at the others); or even where
a faculty is jointly operated between two institutions
Where are students registered for licence purposes and
what is their status?

7. Commercial partnerships
Delivery of a course to a particular group of people in
some form of industry or service outside of an
educational establishment
Courses or collaborations which are sponsored by money
from commercial companies
Students on placement in industry
Define commercial – many academics have both
educational and commercial interests

8. Alumni
• Students who have graduated but who are still
affiliated to the university as external paid members
• No longer ‘our students’
• Opportunities to offer them resource access as part of
their membership and raise money …
• … have licenses evolved to take account of this?

9. Walk-in users
By far the largest group – and one covered by most
licences as long as the user is within University or library
property
Can be anyone from a member of the NHS or a local
college to a visiting member of the public
Universities need to ensure authentication controls have
been implemented to prevent access to material not
licenced for walk-in users

10. Distance learners
Students who are based wholly or partly away from the
home institution
May be based within the UK or abroad
Usually taught within the home institution for a short
period of time; otherwise taught by staff local to the
institution in which they are based
Students who are part-time and otherwise working within
a variety of sectors including hospitals, schools and
commercial companies

11. Site definitions …
UK: Oxford University Press:
“In most cases, Oxford Journals define
a site as being within one metropolitan
boundary i.e. within a city. So if all of
your institution's buildings are within
one city, you can apply for our
institutional site license”.
UK: BMJ Journals:
“We define a single site as one
geographic location (academic or non-
academic) that is under a single
administration”.
US: American Academy of
Pediatrics:
“An “Institution” includes all parts of a
single organization that are located
within the same city and administered
centrally”.
US: IEEE:
“Institutions that have more than one
physical location located more than five
(5) miles from another location, may
incur additional charged to access the
licensed products. Groups of buildings
that share the same campus or are
located within five (5) miles of each
other will be counted as a single site”.

12. … and authorised users
OUP:
“All members (employees, faculty, staff
and students) of the subscribing
institution site are entitled to online
access … includes visitors …accessing
via terminals located on the site and
under the control of the subscribing
institution … includes members using
their home computers … authenticated
by the institution via password
controlled access to an institutional
proxy server, or via Athens”.
AAP:
“persons with a current, authenticated
affiliation to the subscribing Institution
…includes full- and part-time students
and employees …plus other individuals
who have permission to use the public
computers …”
IEEE:
“Authorized Users” are (a) persons
affiliated with Licensee as students,
faculty or employees of Licensee; (b)
persons physically present in
Licensee's facilities; or (c) such other
persons as IEEE may, at the request of
Licensee and in IEEE’s sole discretion,
authorize in writing to access the
Licensed Products”.
BMJ:
means full and part-time employees, staff,
independent contractors and students
who are officially affiliated with the
Licensee at the Location valid Internet
Protocol (“IP”) address(es) provided by
the Licensee to Licensor or via remote
access …

13. Interaction with ERMs
Most electronic resource management systems (ERMs) allow license
information to be input and shared with users through a public
interface
Licenses should be made available in a more machine-readable
format
Licenses should be less legalese and more user-friendly: after all,
many institutions do not have legal specialists dealing day-to-day
with e-resource terms and conditions
Reference to license terms should be quick, easy, and searchable
Model licensing – is this still the way to go?
Inconsistency …

14. Keeping the historical record …
What we had access to in a previous licence (content, perpetual
access, holdings)
Issues around perpetual and/or post-cancellation access
Who had access then (defined authorised user and what happens if
this definition changes now)
From where (on- and off-campus, UK and non-UK)
From when (backfile)
How could they access (IP, password, Athens, Shibboleth, proxy)
If licences are renegotiated which takes precedence?
Why …

15. Issues of interpretation
University says ‘these are our students as they are registered with
us’; provider says ‘they are not’
University says ‘we are single site even though we maintain two
campuses in different cities as they have one administration and one
IP range’; provider says ‘no you are not’
University says ‘access is available to staff teaching on our course at
another university’; provider says ‘it isn’t’
University says that joint courses should mean joint provision of
resources; provider says ‘it should not’
Licenses are grey areas – should there be more clarity?
Should licenses’ main focus be to prevent, not allow?

16. Trends in how universities operate
Overseas campuses
Overseas partnerships
Partnerships with industry
Partnerships across sectors (HE/FE)
Joint initiatives linking universities together
Courses validated in the armed forces
CPD and lifelong learning
Partnerships with local businesses
Partnerships with public libraries and museums

17. In the future …
As universities compete for students partnership
arrangements will be the way forward
Alumni and other external members will require enhanced
access to resources (especially in a print to e shift)
Every university will explore further innovation in its
strategic development: will licenses be able to support
this in terms of resource provision?
Will the ‘virtual campus’ become a reality?