1. Outline Summary of a proposal to:
2.1 Why on-demand and electronic reserve (OD/ER)?
OD/ER holds out the promise of improving support for teaching and learning by:
2.2 Developments in the UK
The relatively small-scale eLib on-demand/electronic reserve projects have increased interest in its potential - however there are blockages in copyright clearance and the cost of digitising (OCR + proof-reading) is high. Our impact study last July (The impact of OD/ER on students, teaching and libraries. JISC, in press, 1997. [Study undertaken by University of Stirling, South Bank and Liverpool John Moores Universities]) reinforces eLib's conclusions that economies will only be gained from a shared service. The conditions required for the successful adoption of OD/ER are:
The International Printing & Electronic Research Centre is currently engaged in a project with publishers such as Macmillan and Cambridge University Press to look at the economics of electronic monograph storage and distribution.
2.3 Mobilising rightsholders
The eLib and TLTP programmes, as well as the Dearing report (rec.43), have greatly increased pressure on rightsholders to reach decisions on policy for electronic permissions and fees. The work of the JISC/PA (Publishers Association) and JISC/ALCS (Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society) working parties has capitalised on this and recommendations on a model licence, fair dealing and payment models among others, are now being studied by rightsholders as well as by Higher Education Institutions (HEIs).
A further important development is that the Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) Board has just announced its intention to deal in electronic permissions. There is already an automated clearance system in place (CLARCS) for paper to paper transactions which could readily be extended to deal with electronic rights from UK rightsholders. Its counterpart in the US, the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC), has been running an electronic reserve pilot project.
The ALCS too is active in ways which could significantly affect permissions clearance: it is waging a vigorous campaign advising academic authors not to assign exclusive rights to publishers. It has also raised important questions regarding ownership of rights in academic-authored texts which suggest the need for clearer policies in many HEIs.
In summary, there is widespread recognition of the need to act quickly, and a desire among the major bodies representing rightsholders to do so. However, outcomes are still difficult to predict: views on appropriate fee levels vary enormously. Further, issues relating to ownership and the definition of 'out-of-print', and agreement on the concept of fair dealing in the digital age remain to be resolved. Bridges have been built between HE and publishers: one example of progress is the Pilot Site Licence Initiative. JISC has demonstrated its determination to raise awareness of the importance of copyright by issuing a new briefing paper on the subject (Senior Management Briefing Paper 5) It is crucial to maintain momentum and ensure that HE has a role in influencing the development of rights policies for the digital age.
2.4 Sharing and marketing HEI-owned learning materials
The growth of a knowledge economy is foreshadowed in the Dearing report (section 13.7-13.9). HEIs will collaborate in the production and delivery of learning materials. Dearing also foresees the development of a world market in this area, based on IT: he believes that HEIs could become major participants, possibly through trading partnerships which could include major commercial companies.
The CATRIONA project survey of electronic resources available within some Scottish HEIs gives some indication of the wealth of material which is likely to be available throughout the UK and which is potentially valuable to other institutions.
3. A national service: HERON (Higher Education Resources ON-demand)
3.1 Aims
The database will be divided into the indexed content database and a value added access database. The consortium will develop a direct entry point for the service through Napier University in Edinburgh; this will contain records for digitised material within the following groups:
In addition the consortium will create a value added access route managed by Blackwell's Information Services, which will also be publicly and freely available to all. (Blackwell's currently have servers housed at the University of London Computing Centre [ULCC] supporting their Electronic Journal Navigator and Serial CONNECT Services). Blackwell's propose to use their proprietary databases of book and CD-Rom titles, journals titles, electronic articles, and other content to match content held in the national database. This would in no way prevent other competitor organisations from having access to the national database held at Napier.
Database records will be to a specification agreed with stakeholders, and will include Dublin Core metadata. Each record will contain basic bibliographic data, enriched with keywords where necessary to permit subject searching. Lists of contents information will be used where feasible.
3.3 The Archive
Once approval is given, we shall contact other eLib projects, past as well as current, to arrange collection of resources into a central resource bank (subject to permission from rightsholders). Material will be stored in a format appropriate to delivery in a national context, as well as in a format to support continuing use in its original environment.
We see the inclusion of HEI owned material as a key part of the service: it offers HE a shop window, as well as storage, for teaching and possibly other materials with the prospect of additional revenue through royalty payments channelled through the CLA. We expect to build up an important income stream for the contributing HEIs and HERON itself. The HE Text Liaison Officer will be responsible for building this part of the collection.
As additional material is digitised at the request of HERON subscribers, copies will be added to the archive (subject to rightsholders' permissions). We also envisage that some publishers may wish to deposit original electronic texts.
3.4 Copyright clearance
A priority will be to build on the work of all the OD/ER projects by revising and extending existing agreements. We must ensure that course material remains available where required and that, if at all possible, no worthwhile digital files are destroyed.
A challenging and vital task will be to negotiate through Blackwell's licensing department, the availability of a range of material (whether for digitisation or already in electronic form) with agreed terms and conditions. This will ameliorate current blockages in copyright clearance. We expect that some publishers will wish to establish an early position in this new market, and to build up business. Evidence of early success will encourage others to perceive any competitive advantage as a threat and consequently agree to participate. Early converters to OD/ER will attempt to persuade academics to substitute their material for that published by companies unwilling to take part.
Another route for copyright clearance will be via the CLA. In informal talks with the Director we have agreed that collaboration would be in the interests of all parties. We have also had discussions with ALCS officers and expect to collaborate with them as HERON develops, particularly over the emerging standard for rights tracking, digital object identifiers (DOIs). Supporting letters are appended. We shall examine the feasibility of offering a clearance service for requests which cannot be handled through the Blackwell's or CLA routes - possibly contracting out to another organisation. A further strand of work in the copyright area will be to negotiate agreements with HEIs and individual academic authors, who will be able to fix their own royalty rates.
3.5 Digitisation
Subscribing HEIs will be able to make requests through HERON. Our Technical Manager will be responsible for commissioning quality digitisation at competitive prices from various bureaux including HEDS. The use of more than one bureau will help to ensure that the peaks of the academic year can be handled.
Since the first version of this bid was submitted the CLA has proposed that it would licence image or image/text files (the latter usually achieved through Adobe Capture). There are several advantages to the Capture option: it eliminates the need for proof-reading, speeding up the process and significantly reducing costs; further, the issue of liability for inaccuracies is unlikely to arise. The Capture approach allows fuzzy searching of the text. However, at this stage there are issues relating to storage and printing which require further investigation before we can be sure that Capture should be the preferred option for HE.
PDF appears to be emerging as standard although it is hoped that HTML documents will also be handled in-house.
When each document is digitised, copyright details and tables of contents will also be digitised, subject to agreement from copyright holders/publishers. These will be used to assist entry on the database. We also hope to negotiate an arrangement with the British Library for the provision of clean copies of text, or digital files which could be converted into an appropriate format.
3.6 Course pack production
We expect that distribution of course packs will be mostly via Blackwell's: packs will be customised and distributed to other bookshops at cost (a small administrative charge will be applied, but all bookshops, including Blackwell's, will be charged at the same amount). Alternatively, a bookshop could, on behalf of academic staff at a HERON site, request materials and produce packs itself. In the latter part of the project, we expect to develop a software tool to facilitate customised course pack production, making the process as automatic as possible. We also intend to explore the possibility of producing CD-Roms, particularly with the distance learning market in mind.
4. The subscriber group
The database will be available to a closed user group, by subscription. It will be important to secure the full co-operation of each HEI over terms and conditions. These may well include prescribed conditions for secure online delivery and other licensing conditions. Each HEI will appoint an official representative, responsible for ensuring that conditions are met. The representatives or their nominees will be invited to join a User Group which will advise on users' requirements. In the latter part of the development phase we aim to extend the service to the FE sector.
4.1 The core service (or, 'What a customer gets for a subscription')
4.2 A subscriber must in addition pay
(This model is based on the original text being provided by the requester).
4.3 Authentication and Delivery software
At this stage there are uncertainties as to the degrees of security and monitoring which publishers will require. We believe it desirable that HEIs are able to choose from a range of options - for instance some may wish to purchase electronic reserve modules which will increasingly be offered by library system suppliers.
Scope's CACTUS software, developed for Mac, Unix or Windows NT servers, allows us to offer, free of charge, a system already approved by many publishers. Those who opt for CACTUS must also make Acrobat Exchange available at print stations. This is a low cost product which may become available through a CHEST deal. We have costed a mandatory set-up package at 2,000 pounds, to include a 2-3 day site visit. However we may be able to reduce visits (and hence the cost of the package) by development of a CD-Rom with full documentation. We aim to check out a small number of other options, and maintain an 'approved list'.
5. Proposed implementation plan
5.1 Consortium partners
The lead site will be the University of Stirling in partnership with Napier and South Bank Universities. Our commercial partner is Blackwell's (Retailing and Information divisions). We shall benefit particularly from their marketing expertise and contact with publishers through their licensing department. The development of an engine which permits searching and retrieval from a number of resource banks is particularly worthwhile. It should be noted that the HEI database and resource bank will be developed separately.
For further details of the partners and their experience, see HERON appendix below.
5.2 Primary responsibilities
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| HERON dbase archive |
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| Marketing/evaluation | * |
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5.3 Staffing requirements
Section Omitted
5.4 Staffing resources contributed by Blackwell's
Section Omitted
5.5 Software
Our Technical Unit will use mainstream software applications for all aspects of project work. These include Microsoft and Adobe products. Blackwell's are providing an Oracle database and are also using Broadvision for web development.
5.6 Hardware
The Technical Unit will be using a mix of Windows and Macintosh computer systems. This will offer a flexible approach to all aspects of the production cycle and web delivery work.
5.7 Standards
The service will adopt standards as laid down in the eLib Standards Guidelines. The service will also seek to include emerging standards as they become technologically stable. The use of some emerging standards, such as DOIs, will assist the interoperability of payment systems. By building systems using mainstream applications and components, upgradeability remains a viable, yet cost-effective way of accommodating rapid changes in technology.
The materials in the HERON Resource Bank may well form an appropriate addition to any UK content in the EDUCOM-sponsored Instructional Management System, which may well become a standard for the storage and retrieval of teaching and learning materials. JISC's TASC has become a partner in this project and is funding UK participation. We will explore with TASC's agent the options for IMS compliance of the HERON Resource Bank so that UK HEIs can take full advantage of both IMS and Heron.
Authentication using ATHENS
Scope has considered ATHENS as a method of authentication. However, its inability to transfer user data back to information providers for accounting or other purposes may render it inappropriate in the context of a national on-demand service. We shall watch developments arising from the JISC Study into the requirements for authentication, authorisation and privacy in HE: this may lead to community wide standards.
The Project Board, responsible for the overall management and direction of the project, will include representatives of the major stakeholders. The Chair will be Dr Peter Kemp, Director of Information Services, (US) and member of the JISC Advisory Committee on Networking and John Akeroyd, Director of Learning Resources, South Bank University, Suzanne Wilson Higgins, Director of Marketing and Roger Bowen, Business Development Manager (both of Blackwell's), and two members appointed by JISC. (JISC is a significant stakeholder, over and above its role as a funding body, charged with the promotion of C & IT aspects of the Dearing report, and the quality of UK HE through the sharing of the best possible materials and methods. HERON has the potential to provide a resource bank which can underpin these developments. We therefore look forward to a strategic relationship with JISC).
There will also be a panel of expert advisers including Charles Oppenheim (Copyright Adviser to CEI) and Mark Bide (Mark Bide & Associates). Both have authored eLib supporting studies on rights issues. Chris Sugden, Retail Branches Manager, John Smith & Son Bookshops and a former Chair of the College and University Booksellers' Group has also agreed to advise.
A User Group will be set up with representatives of each subscribing HEI: the Chair, in the first instance, will be Phil Sykes (Librarian, UH and former Director of an eLib OD/ER project). As Chair he will be a member of the Project Board.
Project management will utilise a modified version of PRINCE, a widely used methodology in public service organisations. The Project Co-ordinator will be based at Stirling and will be responsible for the routine running of the project, including liaising with the systems development team at Blackwell's.
Financial management will be by the University of Stirling Finance Department, in accordance with the SHEFC Financial Memorandum. Since we shall be operating a real service, the consortium universities should be paid separately to avoid VAT. Letters of understanding will be exchanged between the consortium partners and it will be necessary for all subscribing institutions to sign terms and conditions.
6.2 Milestones
| Year 1 | August 1998 - July 1999 |
| End Aug. | project plans complete |
| End Dec. | prototype service ready to demo |
| End May | start service with initial subscribers (printed course pack or files for online delivery within HEIs) |
| Year 2 | August 1999 - July 2000 |
| End Mar. | report on feasibility of CD-Rom service |
| End Apr. | software tool for customised course pack production |
| Year 3 | August 2000 - July 2001 |
| End Aug. | development plan for FE sector finalised |
| End Mar. | exit strategy finalised |
6.3 Review mechanisms
PRINCE has inbuilt review mechanisms and quality checks. We have noted the many uncertainties which could affect progress: it will therefore be necessary to have a rolling business plan, reviewed regularly with JISC/eLib.
6.4 Systems development
Building on the work carried out by SCOPE, an Access database, housed on an NT platform, will be linked to the web and other servers via PERL script CGIs. This development will be undertaken in conjunction with Blackwell's in order to dovetail the database interaction.
Links will be established with the project's Macintosh servers which will be utilised for document delivery using Frontier CGIs.
Blackwell's use a specially designed RAD based management and development methodology. This methodology is divided into two main areas; the management model which provides a framework and the development model which facilitates the delivery of the actual product. The development model is essentially a traditional IT process, however the management model is extended to encompass the entire life-cycle of producing an electronic product or service.
Oracle is used for the Blackwell's databases and among the development tools being considered are Broadvision which profiles client requests, assisting relevant searches.
HERON will also offer rightsholders a new income stream and we would emphasise rightsholders are not only commercial publishers and individual authors. Our partnership with Blackwell's will provide the opportunity for HEIs to market their texts and multimedia (e.g. TLTP) globally, through HERON in the UK and Blackwell's elsewhere.
7.2 Market research
At an early stage we shall do further research into what level of subscription and fees the market will bear, primarily through interviews with senior librarians. We shall also investigate the competing claims of text and image files to determine a preferred (but not the only) format to be handled by HERON.
Unless the service can supply with little delay a substantial proportion of material required for individual courses or modules, then it will be perceived as not worthwhile. We have considered various types of overlap study to determine which texts have widespread use in HEIs: none appear to be speedy or efficient. Instead, we intend to ask via university departments, the CTIs and professional accrediting bodies, for academics to nominate topics within their fields of interest which they believe are widely taught, and particularly at lower levels where classes tend to be larger. With the trend to modularization, it appears that there may be growing overlap between courses within individual institutions. Priority will be given to building up resources in these areas, as well as in the subject areas of the original eLib projects where there is continuing demand. Blackwell's will provide substantial market research data based on analysis of course packs sold in their bookshops and feedback from their academic marketing representatives. We shall not exclude other subject areas, if a need were shown even by a single HEI and costs could be covered: exemplars are important to encourage further adoption of OD/ER.
Possible inhibitors to growth are university funding difficulties during the transition from print to electronic reserve and potential problems in scaling up electronic reserve systems (some HEIs will prefer course packs until IT infrastructure and support improve).
7.3 Business models
We shall investigate with CLA a model with lower clearance fees for customers who commission retro-digitisation, followed by higher fees for reuse by other customers. This would form an element of our negotiations with rightsholders, as would the right to receive a return to HERON for the storage, administration and marketing of digitised texts.
All our business models depend on our ability to build up a large and useful bank of materials without having to invest in unduly difficult negotiations with rightsowners and without undermining other related initiatives. The constraints on materials which this will impose seem likely to include the following:
In its initial phases HERON must therefore be seen as experimental, and the final business model must take account of what we learn during its development.
7.4 Promoting the potential of OD/ER and marketing the service
We regard the promotion of OD/ER and the marketing of the service as crucially important. While it is necessary to evangelise amongst librarians outside the eLib circle, it is even more important to engage academics and students directly and discuss how OD/ER can meet their needs. Take-up of OD/ER material depends on the strong recommendation of academic staff, and there is much to be done to demonstrate how innovative teachers have successfully incorporated OD/ER into course design.
Course packs and possibly CD-Roms will be distributed via Blackwell's to bookshops throughout the UK (and other countries if licence conditions permit). CACTUS, the Scope software for secure online delivery, will be made available from the Technical Unit at NU. It is of course essential to market the HERON database and resource bank itself, to encourage use of the service and the deposit of additional HEI collections. Marketing will be done in collaboration with Blackwell's through a launch campaign, ongoing publicity, College and University Booksellers' Annual Conference etc. The Frankfurt Bookfair is seen as a good opportunity to negotiate licence agreements. All academic booksellers (not only Blackwell's) will be encouraged to advertise the service to academic staff when new lists of recommended reading are requested.
The message will be spread through seminars, conferences and journal articles and a web presence, making use of learning support networks where possible. The use of Blackwell's marketing department will be a major benefit and it will make substantial budgets available for pre-launch and launch campaigns.
7.5 Evaluation
We shall undertake a continuing programme of market research and product improvement. An evaluation plan will form part of the Project Initiation Document.
Several institutions have agreed to act as testbeds: Napier, South Bank, Stirling, Huddersfield, West of England and Anglia Polytechnic Universities. The final list may well include HEIs interested in our priority subject areas, to be determined in the first 3 months.
Key areas for formative evaluation will be:
Key areas for summative evaluation will be:
We see four main methods of evaluation:
| Consortium Partners |
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University of Stirling and Napier University: SCOPE project
South Bank University
Blackwell's