The HERON Project

Background to HERON

Following the recommendations of the Follett Report of 1993 on the use of information technology in university libraries, the Electronic Libraries Programme (eLib) was established by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) . The central aim of eLib is to use IT to improve delivery of information through increased use of electronic library services.

HERON was initiated as a phase three eLib project, and began work in August 1998. Building on the work of previous eLib projects in the on-demand / electronic reserve fields, like: Scope (Scottish Collaborative On-demand Publishing Enterprise), Project Phoenix and Acorn (Access to Course Readings via Networks), HERON aims to be at the forefront of the movement from paper-based short loan collections in libraries, to a more efficient electronic method of delivery. The project's original remit was to:

Develop a national database and resource bank of electronic texts in order to widen access to course materials and improve the quality of learning throughout higher education in the UK
Collaborate with rightsholders and representative bodies to remove blockages in copyright clearance and to determine appropriate fee levels and conditions for the digital age
Offer opportunities to universities and colleges to market their own learning resources

The HERON test service began in June 1999, with five universities actively participating. By the end of July 2000, membership had increased to 17 Universities, and by the start of the academic year 2001/2002, HERON had over 40 members. Materials have been requested for courses as diverse as literature, popular music, business studies, nursing, and medicine, sociology and politics.

In March 2002, HERON was acquired by Ingenta, ensuring its future after its project phase ended in July 2002. By the end of the project phase in July 2002, HERON had over 50 subscribing institutions within the UK and had begun the extension of the service to the FE sector.

Key features of the HERON Service

HERON continues to develop and improve many aspects of its service as part of Ingenta plc. To find out more about the current service, please visit http://heronweb.ingenta.com/heron. The aspects of HERON's service described in this section were accurate up until the end of the Project phase on 31st July 2002.

The HERON Service has certain unique features:

It is the only service which offers HEIs and FEIs a one-stop clearance and digitisation service.

The service is demand driven, and can be tailored to the needs of individual subscribers.

HERON works with all publishers and rightsholders, or their appointed agents, from the UK or abroad.

Unlike the CLA, HERON can arrange copyright clearance for illustrative material contained within requested texts. Copyright of such material frequently belongs to a rightsholder other than the publisher/author of the text and requires separate copyright clearance. HERON currently undertakes this work at no extra direct cost to the requesting institution other than any copyright fees that may be incurred.

HERON has also, uniquely, Trusted Repository status. This means that it may archive and catalogue copies of CLA-cleared digitised texts thus creating a resource bank of pre-digitised material available for rapid re-use. This Resource Bank is being built from copies of material requested through HERON, plus the addition of texts from some of the most frequently requested subject areas which will be digitised on a speculative basis.

Who Benefits from HERON?

One of the major aims of HERON is that all the stakeholders should benefit from its work. This includes not only students, the end users of the services which HERON supplies, but also academic staff, library staff, publishers and other rightsholders.

Students
The changing profile and lifestyle of students in UK HE and FE today means that they are spending less and less time on campus. Part time and mature students frequently have jobs and family responsibilities which severely restrict their opportunities to visit the university or college campus to use the learning support facilities traditionally offered there. Even the ‘traditional’, full time students are increasingly working to support their studies and they too have less time to spare to get to the library. Many universities are providing increasing numbers of courses for distance learning students and in many cases providing a time consuming and expensive paper based postal service to support them. (One university which is currently expanding in this area reckons to spend an average of £50 per distance learning student on postage alone.)

Provision of digitised learning materials allows students to study both at a time and at a location which is convenient to them. Digitised materials provided by HERON can be used very flexibly - they can be viewed on screen, downloaded to disc or printed out. Students can also learn at a pace which suits them, returning to the material as often as they need to for no additional cost. HERON is not a pay per view service. Once the material is licensed to the university it may be used by students on the relevant course as frequently as they wish (as long as it is within the period for which the university has been given a licence to use the material).

Academic staff
Both academic staff, and universities and colleges as a whole, benefit from use of digitised materials because it enables them to provide equality of access to learning, whether it be across sites, for large groups, distance learners or for students studying whilst on work based courses away from the campus. It enables the construction of flexible learning courses tailored to the needs of specific groups of students and the implied requirement that students extend their C&IT skills to access these resources, helps to support desirable learning outcomes such as the development of transferable skills. This flexibility both in access and content is also ideal for those involved in widening access schemes and the improvement in standards of access is important in satisfying QA requirements.

By using digitised texts, academic staff can provide access for students to their personal selection of texts, whether they are in - or out of print. Use of electronic ‘course packs’ also has the very direct benefit for academic staff that students come to lectures and tutorials better prepared and staff time is not wasted in explanations or providing additional copies of key texts.

Informal feed-back to HERON has already shown that, where course materials are provided electronically and their use is promoted by the academic staff concerned, students are enthusiastic about these changes it and have asked for an extension of such provision to other courses.

Library staff
Digital provision of learning materials has enormous benefits for library staff. The provision of short loan collections and extended services at the weekends and in the evenings has not, in general, satisfied student demands for improved access to the texts they need. Use of digitised resources means that key texts can be delivered to many students simultaneously and can be accessed without a student needing to come to the library. As a result, students get the material they want, and damage and loss to library stock is eliminated - as is the need to spend time looking for, repairing or re-ordering and processing lost or damaged material.

Time is also saved if staff do not have to undertake the complex process of copyright clearance themselves and staff can also be confident that compliance with copyright conditions are assured where material is ordered through the HERON Service.

Publishers and other rightsholders
HERON’s commitment to providing benefits to all stakeholders extends to publishers and rightsholders as well as to the HE and FE community. HERON works strongly in providing a pressure group on behalf of HE and FE in its work with rightsholders however, it is also committed to raising awareness amongst HEIs and FEIs on behalf of rightsholders and ensuring that they too receive a fair return.

HERON therefore takes a non-confrontational approach to rightsholders and acknowledges their real concerns when confronting issues of digitisation of existing printed texts about loss of sales revenue and about loss of control over the content of their material. In a very new and fluid situation rightsholders are looking to HERON to provide information and feedback on the requirements of their academic market. HERON is working to reassure all rightsholders and to demonstrate that there is a secure means of distributing electronic texts to students and one which offers them new marketing opportunities within HE.

HERON's Future:

After its successful pilot phase, HERON's future was secured by its acquisition by Ingenta plc in March 2002.

There is already considerable interest in the HERON Service both within the UK and beyond. HERON is committed to providing an on-going service to existing and new members after the end of its current project funding and is actively investigating the best way forward. The movement towards the use of digitised texts for learning and teaching purposes is dynamic Significant developments in the publishing industry, in available C&IT as well as in the academic sector have been made during HERON's short existence and there is no reason to expect that change in the immediate future will be any slower. Subscription to HERON is enabling HEIs and FEIs to work together and learn from each other to achieve the cultural, organisational and technical changes necessary to make the use of digitised learning materials possible and the achievement of the digital library a reality.

HERON is now working within the DNER and funding has been granted by JISC for an additional year (2001/2) so that HERON can look for a long term solution to the provision of our increasingly valued clearance and digitisation service for the UK HE sector.

HERON is now entering its fourth year – which is its third year of service to the HE community. As the initial 3 year term of the Project came to an end, HERON has undergone some major changes including the ending of the connection with Blackwell Retail Ltd. The remaining universities, Stirling, Napier and South Bank have now formed the HERON Partnership which will manage the service for the next 12 months.

Of more immediate importance for members has been the development of HERONs own web based Request and Management System, HERONweb. This system incorporates very many of the suggestions made by members during the last 18 months. It has been specifically tailored to the needs of our users, to save them time and to provide them with ready access to information which allows them to manage their requests to HERON efficiently.

Information on future developments will be posted on these pages as soon as it is available.

Annual Reports

Annual Report 1998/99 (HTML)
Annual Report 1998/99 (Word 97 file)
Annual Report 1999/00 (HTML)
Annual Report 1999/00 (Word 97 file)
Annual Report 2003(Word file)

HERON Home Page

Web pages maintained by Tricia Davey
Email: p.a.davey@stir.ac.uk
Last updated: 28 February 2003