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SCOPE is administered by the Follett Implementation |
1.1 Chronology
1.2 Major activities
1.3 Main objectives
1.4 Outputs and successes
Go to the SCOPE Annual Report Table of Contents
Stage 1 (to 30 June 1995)
Stage 2 (to September 1995)
Stage 3 (revised to mid-May 1996)
Stage 4 (to July 1996)
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Copyright
Library
i) Working with Library Representatives to:
- identify courses suitable for SCOPE resources
- supply reading lists to copyright unit in correct format and on schedule.
Production
Publicity and Evaluation
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i) To seek to negotiate a set of model agreements with publishers under the guidance of the Copyright Advisory Panel. At the outset, we hoped to have some agreements in place by the end of year 1 so that materials could be added to the resource bank in year 2 without negotiating the terms on which we could use every item. Although we have some agreements in place a significant proportion of rights holders have granted permission to digitize by letter preferring to delay negotiations on the detail of the SCOPE model contract for licensing on-demand publishing in academic libraries.
ii) To select a subject area and create digital resources that will be of benefit at a majority of SCOPE consortium member institutions and to a large number of students who previously have relied on library provision for core reading materials, and to select a second subject area. For year 2, using the same criteria, but with the additional criterion that the material be technically challenging. Sociology was selected as the first subject area. There is overlap in curricula at consortium member institutions although courses are structured differently across institutions and materials required in first year at one institution may be required in third or fourth year at another institution. (See Stage 3 Curricula Study Document.)
iii) To specify the required functions of an electronic copyright management and document delivery system or an electronic copyright management system and a document delivery system that will work in tandem with the electronic copyright management system and to either identify products that suit those specifications or can be customised to those specifications or to plan to have such a system(s) developed for use by the project. An initial investigation suggested that no suitable system would be available so we wrote a functional specification and invited tenders to develop a system. We received two tenders; both suggested that the specification demanded too much for the money offered. At that time eLib commissioned Bill Tuck's scoping study into electronic copyright management systems and so we delayed progress pending his report. In June 1995 we believed that tight security and control would be required by publishers before they would license their material to SCOPE to digitize for transmission over a network and delivery on-line. We have considered the merits and drawbacks of encryption over the last year and although the climate has changed, the emphasis on control being relaxed, we still believe that our aim of delivering key texts on-line throughout the Scottish higher education community, requires a system that is relatively secure. We have now decided to use a system that combines encryption and watermarking technology.
iv) To digitize the materials identified in reading lists, print those digital files and bind the material in course packs to be supplied to students. Throughout year 1 it has been difficult to obtain reading lists on schedule. Delays in obtaining lists of required readings have made copyright clearance on-schedule very difficult. When reading lists are obtained they generally require a good deal of extra work by the SCOPE team before copyright clearance can begin: correct bibliographic information must be gathered and errors in the lists must be corrected. Identifying current copyright holders also takes time (see stage 2 Copyright Clearance Document).
To date we have produced five course packs. Three of these packs were produced for a single class in Autumn 1995. Permission to photocopy the materials was granted by the Copyright Licensing Agency at great expense. Two more packs were produced in Spring 1996. Permission to digitize for print production was cleared directly by publishers for more than half of the content of these packs. Packs were hybrid photocopy/digitized text.
v) To raise the profile of SCOPE among librarians and academics at SCOPE consortium member institutions and among scholarly and academic publishers. The SCOPE team has been careful not to raise expectations in areas where we cannot meet demand so publicity within HEIs has been limited:
SCOPE team members have been active in publicizing the project in the wider context of academic information.
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i) SCOPE has met all of its milestones in Year 1 and generated a considerable volume of data of value to our major stakeholders in the academic information chain. This is being disseminated in publications and through presentations in accordance with our evaluation plan.
The major documents prepared by SCOPE and already forwarded to eLib are:
Other major project reports are included in the appendices to this report, and the Business Plan for Year 2 is attached.
ii) We have produced five course packs for undergraduate sociology students at two institutions. To do so we have negotiated with nearly 60 rights holders and accumulated a lot of data on copyright clearance. The problems identified in this process have been documented and analysed in the Stage 2 and Stage 3 Copyright Clearance Documents. Although negotiations have been protracted, the interest from publishers, booksellers and consultants to related industries has been considerable, and has resulted in several agreements. Between Stage 2, (when copyright was cleared through the CLA and packs produced by photocopying) and Stage 3, when dealings were direct with publishers, the average copyright fee was reduced from 7.7 to 5.5 pence per page and in Stage 3 we received permission to digitise 50% of the pack, allowing text to be formatted to SCOPE's own design with a consequent reduction in paper costs.
Sales in Stage 2 exceeded all expectations. Of particular interest to publishers are the campus bookshop's sales figures which demonstrate that sale of SCOPE packs did not affect sales of other textbooks for the course at all, but provided significant additional revenue. Sales of SCOPE packs were relatively fewer in round two (stage 3), and relevant factors have been identified. Sales of commercially published texts were also down at the same campus university as used in round one, although the overall percentage of sales of copyright material was increased. Again, we have identified several relevant factors. At the city university it is not possible to obtain a complete set of sales figures as it much more likely that many bookshops would have been used, However 35% of students on the course claimed to have bought new text books.
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