Response from the Joint Information
Systems Committee (JISC)
Executive Summary
1. The Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC)
welcomes the timely and helpful Report of the House of Commons
Science and Technology Committee "Scientific publications:
free for all?" (HC399-1).[27]
The Report contains many conclusions and recommendations of importance
to the JISC in carrying forward its strategic objectives.
2. The JISC has a remit to ensure joined-up thinking
across the boundaries of research, learning and teaching, and
the administration functions within institutions to avoid multiple
solutions being adopted. JISC's vision is to enable the seamless
linking of e-research, e-learning, digital library and management
information resources, through the co-ordination of technical
architectures and standards.
3. A number of the Report's conclusions and recommendations
are in line with existing and future JISC programmes to improve
access to resources and help to confirm the direction of much
of JISC's current activity. Nine of the eighty-two recommendations
in the Report mention the JISC specifically and many more mention
JISC funded initiatives such as SHERPA or the e-prints.org software
which have been at the forefront of institutional repository development
in the UK. [28],[29]
The JISC has already identified the need for change in the scientific
publishing model in order to improve access and has been funding
projects and reports to stimulate change.
4. Many of the recommendations in the Report directed
specifically at the JISC relate to the model for the purchase
of subscriptions and authentication mechanisms. The tenor of the
relevant sections in the Report is to encourage the JISC and universities
to press for better pricing and licensing terms from publishers.
In this respect the Report can be read as supportive of the JISC's
work. The Report does, however, present a challenge to move to
even more effective national co-ordination of purchasing of academic
content.
5. A number of other recommendations in the Report
relate to institutional repositories but do not directly refer
to JISC's involvement in repositories which is at least as important
as its journal negotiation role. Repositories are being adopted
by institutions to store learning and teaching and administrative
data in addition to journals and other research resources. The
JISC supports the sector in providing infrastructure services
and in some cases national repositories and data stores where
community content can be stored, shared and used. JISC also funds
significant development work to explore some of the technical
and organisational issues that surround the provision of content
of all types. The recommendations in the Report fully endorse
the kinds of activities that JISC is funding in this area. There
are likely to be a complex cross-hatch of subject and institutional
repositories in the future and the JISC will seek to ensure that
development work is funded to make the cross-hatch as easy as
possible for users to migrate from one to the other.
6. This document responds to the relevant conclusions
and recommendations and identifies the main actions the JISC intends
to take in support of the report. These can be summarised across
four themes:
i. Common approaches across a range of communities;
ii. A coherent supporting infrastructure;
iii. Processes to join up the "lifecycle"
of knowledge;
iv. New publishing models and supporting activities.
7. The JISC has set aside sufficient core funding
to deliver the actions identified. However, it should be emphasised
that additional government funding for digital preservation, institutional
repositories, and the exploration of new business models would
be necessary if the Select Committee Report's recommendations
are to be implemented in full.
JISC Actions
8. The relevant actions that the JISC has identified
and intends to address are outlined below.
Common approaches across a range of communities
Common Information Environment
For some time, the JISC has been involved in a collaboration
with key public sector content providers in the UK to implement
the concept of a "Common Information Environment" ((http://www.jisc.ac.uk/cie/).
Organisations in different sectors are making significant amounts
of online content available to their respective communities — in
health, education, museums, archives, research, public libraries,
and so on. However, the barriers between sectors mean that not
all this content is accessible to all who might need it or want
it. Too much remains hidden amongst the low-quality information
that clutters the web and behind technical, commercial and administrative
barriers. There is a pressing need for an initiative which will
join these efforts together, one that will genuinely repay the
significant investment that is currently being made across a range
of sectors. Overcoming these barriers will require concerted action
on the part of all organisations in the field. It will take time
and it will not be easy. But the vision of a common information
environment is a good starting point. We believe that if the UK
is to remain at the forefront of educational and technological
progress, and if each individual is to access the information
they need, a Common Information Environment is required which
will provide full access to the rich information and the exciting
possibilities that the web has to offer to each and every one
of us. The JISC
intends to invest additional funding, from within its core budget,
in order to accelerate this initiative.
Scholarly Communications Group
A key performance indicator in JISC's Strategy is
to develop an overview of the barriers to effective scholarly
communication and the emerging behaviours and different activities
being funded worldwide to improve the position. The JISC's Scholarly
Communications Group (http://www.jisc.ac.uk/jcie/scg) has been
in operation since December 2000. Its role is to look across the
relevant activities within JISC's portfolio and bring them together
in a coherent way. The Group's mission is to make a leading
contribution to the investigation and implementation of sustainable
and cost-effective emerging behaviours across the various aspects
of the scholarly communications process. It does this on behalf
of the UK educational and research communities and in collaboration
with relevant national and international partners. To date, the
Group has addressed this mission by commissioning work to highlight
key issues that require further investigation and activity. However,
it is clear that further co-ordination and international collaboration
is required. The
JISC intends to review the terms of reference and membership of
the Scholarly Communications Group and increase its budget, from
within JISC core funding, in order to accelerate developments
and initiate an advocacy and supporting studies programme.
A coherent supporting infrastructure
Institutional Repositories
It should be noted that the JISC sees a wider role
for institutional repositories than just journals or research
resources generally. Learning objects and other materials have
similar requirements, particularly as considerable economies of
scale can be achieved by using common infrastructure within an
organisation. The JISC intends to continue to lead institutional
repository developments in UK post-16 institutions and has core
funding and short-term capital funding set aside to address the
institutional repositories agenda across research, learning and
teaching and libraries (up to £3 million per annum).
To date, the JISC has provided support to universities
and colleges for the creation of repositories through the FAIR
Programme. [30]
Projects funded (including SHERPA) are already committed to making
their experience of repository development available to all UK
universities and colleges. The provision of institutional repositories
is a complex issue, involving cultural change, technical capability
and capacity. The JISC has developed an understanding of the associated
issues and is already taking forward activity that supports the
report's recommendations in this area.
Since the publication of the report, the JISC has
established a new Digital Repositories Programme to build on some
of the outputs from the FAIR Programme and to accelerate the development
of institutional repositories, through the provision of software,
models and infrastructure, and the dissemination of best practice.
The Programme will explore the most appropriate relationships
between national, subject and institutional repositories, what
kinds of functions should be provided by each, and what types
of materials should be stored and by whom. Continuation funding
has already been agreed for the eprints.org repository software
for further maintenance and technical development work to support
the needs of a much larger and more diverse user community. To
inform the Repositories Programme, the JISC has recently funded
a study that has reported on the options for delivery and access
for Eprints and Open Access Journals. A second study has also
been commissioned to obtain a current view on technologies and
institutional practice in repositories and perform a gap analysis.
The review will report in December, at which point the JISC will
issue an invitation to universities and colleges in January 2005
to bid for targeted funding in this area, based on the outcomes
of the review. The funding available
to JISC is not sufficient to allow all institutions to establish
and maintain repositories, where appropriate or to establish a
coherent "network of institutional repositories," as
recommended in the report. JISC is funding the development of
an infrastructure to allow the content held within the repositories
to be shared and discovered, and to share good practice. Significant
additional funding will be required from government for a sustainable
initiative on a larger scale.
Digital Preservation
The long-term preservation of repository content
which may include publications and other materials—particularly
content for which a university or college is unable to take responsibility—is
a serious concern. Long-term preservation is also a complex challenge
which is difficult for any one institution to address alone. Collaboration
across different organisations in this area is therefore essential.
The JISC funds a Digital Curation Centre for e-science data and
co-funds archives in the arts and humanities and social sciences
with the respective Research Councils. [31]
The JISC has also been working closely with British Library and
other institutions on organisational and technical problems to
be overcome in the preservation of all electronic content, including
establishing a Digital Preservation Coalition.[32]
The JISC has also recently launched a new preservation programme
which is funding a number of projects to support digital preservation
and asset management in universities and colleges which will explicitly
address preservation and archiving issues for institutional repositories
and test collaborative models.[33]
These projects will involve a range of university computing science
and library departments and partners such as the British Library
and the National Archives. The
JISC intends to further explore how the HE Funding Bodies, the
JISC, the National Libraries and the Research Councils, through
the RLN, can work together to develop a sustainable infrastructure
supporting digital preservation of a range of research materials.
However, significant additional government funding would be required
if a robust digital preservation infrastructure is to exist in
the UK. The JISC would also be keen to work with the British Library,
the Research Councils and others to establish who should be responsible
for the national repository safety net which could provide a "back-up
service" for the institutional repositories, and explore
the links to digital preservation.
Joining up processes across the 'lifecycle'
of knowledge
Linking Research Data and Learning
More exploration is required to look at the content
"lifecycle" for research data and e-prints. An example
of existing work is the JISC-funded eBank UK project (http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/projects/ebank-uk/).
The project is looking at the entire "lifecycle" of
knowledge, from raw data to the published article. The project
has demonstrated how to link research data with other derived
information, such as e-prints, in the subject of chemistry. The
project has harvested metadata both from e-print archives and
research data from institutional "e-data repositories."
The availability of original data, together with the ability to
track its use in subsequent research work, scholarly publications
or learning materials will have a significant impact on access
to research outputs and on the validation process. The project
has generated a lot of interest, both in the UK and internationally.
The JISC has recently extended the project in order to seek consensus
within the community on the development of a generic data model
and metadata schema for scientific data and to assess the pedagogical
benefits of access to primary e-research data within associated
e-learning materials in the taught postgraduate curriculum in
chemistry. It will also investigate the expansion of the eBank
service in other sub-disciplines of chemistry and the physical
sciences and test the feasibility of implementing eBank in the
related domain area of the biosciences. The
JISC intends to expand this area of activity, from within its
core funding, as a further way of improving access to research
resources and improving the scholarly communication process.
New publishing models and supporting activities
Open Access Journals
The JISC is committed to exploring alternative models
of publishing to promote wider access to research outputs. The
JISC is funding a study of the advantages and disadvantages of
a range of different publishing models and has recently extended
its agreement with BioMedCentral, the Open Access Publisher, which
gives all UK universities membership and allows staff to publish
their work in BioMed Central's growing number of Open Access journals
without incurring a direct article-processing charge. The JISC
is also supporting four publishers wishing to move to the Open
Access model through short term pump-priming through its Open
Access initiative and has recently launched a new phase
of support for publishers who wish to transition to Open Access
(http://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=funding_open_access2).
However, in order
to explore a range of business models and make a significant impact,
the initiative would need to be expanded to a much larger scale.
The JISC does not have sufficient funding to pump-prime such an
initiative on a large scale. Additional funding would therefore
be required from Government.
Journal Procurement
The JISC undertakes central journal procurement through
an initiative known as "NESLi 2" (http://www.nesli2.ac.uk/).
The JISC intends to continue with this approach and to press for
better pricing and licensing terms from publishers. The initiative
will also continue to explore new licensing models with publishers
and a study has recently been commissioned to investigate the
benefits and disadvantages of a range of business models. The
Report does, however, present a challenge to move to even more
effective national co-ordination of purchasing of academic content,
through collaboration with regional purchasing consortia. The
NESLi model has received much interest and emulation internationally
and the JISC also intends to pursue greater international liaison
to bring together international policies and approaches to journal
procurement. The national journal procurement approach adopted
in the UK through NESLi could be more powerful if negotiations
were undertaken for the whole academic community rather than those
institutions willing to subscribe. However, there is not sufficient
funding available to JISC to undertake national journal procurements
in this way. The
JISC intends to liaise with international journal procurement
bodies and regional purchasing consortia to explore collaborative
opportunities. In light of the Report, the JISC also intends to
undertake an awareness programme regarding the licensing terms
of JISC agreements, in order to improve the community's understanding
of the flexibility provided in the licence terms.
Content Procurement Company
The JISC strategy for 2004 - 2006 includes a priority
to create and maintain sustainable procurement and delivery services
for on line content. In response to this, the JISC is exploring
the establishment of a Content Procurement Company to address
the challenge presented in the Report for even more effective
national co-ordination of purchasing of academic content. Such
a company would be able to negotiate access to online content
on behalf of all higher and further education institutions through
JISC as well as on behalf of other organisations such as the Research
Libraries Network, NHS or the Museums Libraries and Archives Commission.
This central negotiation will bring the benefit of terms and conditions
of use that would not be possible if agreements were negotiated
individually by institutions or organisations and much reduced
subscription charges for access to content. The
JISC aims to have the Company established and ready for operation
by 1 August 2005. The Company will be funded from within JISC's
existing budget to negotiate on behalf of higher and further education
institutions, though will require additional funding to extend
its remit to negotiate on behalf of other public sector organisations.
9. The above areas represent a considerable set of
activities that the JISC intends to undertake and which will help
to implement some of the key recommendations in the Report. These
can be accommodated within JISC's core budget and fits well with
the JISC's remit. However, for the Report's recommendations to
be implemented fully, significant additional Government funding
would be required for key areas such as institutional repositories,
digital preservation and the further exploration and pump-priming
of new publishing models. If Government funding is made available,
the JISC sees itself as the appropriate body to continue to lead
such initiatives, in collaboration with other relevant bodies,
given its existing remit and involvement in these areas.
10. The remainder of this response seeks to draw
attention to all JISC's relevant activities in the context of
the recommendations in the Report of the House of Commons Science
and Technology Committee Scientific publications: free for
all? It is divided into two parts: Open Access and repository
issues; and licensing issues.
Open Access & Repository Issues
11. Recommendations 3, 53 & 74 concern
the need for the UK to act in an international context. The JISC
has supported change in scholarly publishing in close collaboration
with organisations in other countries. As the Report indicates,
there is an opportunity for the UK to take the lead, although
the window of opportunity is narrow given the progress being made
in other countries. The benefits from the new publishing model
are being felt across the world, and in particular, developing
countries can benefit from greater accessibility to UK research.
In particular the JISC is working with organizations in the United
States, Australia, and the Netherlands to learn from their progress
in this area and to deal with issues that cut across national
boundaries together. The JISC is also taking forward developments
in standards to support a national infrastructure of repositories
in partnership with international standards making bodies. The
JISC welcomes the recommendations in the Report for discussion
and action at an international level.
12. Recommendation 7 concerns the principle
that primary research data be made available and concludes "that
the Research Councils consider providing funds to enable researchers
to publish their primary data alongside their research findings,
where appropriate". The JISC vision for repositories is of
a wide range of content to support both teaching and research.
As part of this vision the JISC is exploring models where repositories
of raw data can be linked to research papers. The JISC works closely
with the Research Councils and jointly hosts some of the primary
data already supported by Research Council funds, through services
in the social sciences and in the arts and humanities. The institutional
repositories created through the JISC-funded FAIR Programme already
contain many types of academic material including e-prints and
primary research data which would prove useful to researchers.
The FAIR Programme, through projects like E-prints UK is also
developing infrastructure to allow all e-prints stored in institutional
repositories to be located irrespective of their location. Crucially
all the JISC activity in this area is standards based so that
interoperability between different data and information is enabled.
13. Recommendation 43 and 55 respectively
conclude that "the requirement for universities to disseminate
their research as widely as possible be written into their charters.
In addition, SHERPA should be funded by DfES to allow it to make
grants available to all research institutions for the establishment
and maintenance of repositories" "Government appoints
and funds a central body, based on SHERPA, to co-ordinate the
implementation of a network of institutional repositories".
The JISC has provided support to universities and colleges for
the creation of repositories through the FAIR Programme, and projects
funded under this Programme (including SHERPA) are already committed
to making their experience of repository development available
to all UK universities and colleges. The SHERPA Project aims to
create a substantial corpus of research papers from several of
the leading research institutions in the UK by establishing e-print
archives. Other projects in the programme including TARDIS, based
at the University of Southampton, have also used funding to develop
institutional repositories and have gained much useful intelligence
for the community during this process. The JISC is actively pursuing
ways in which institutional repositories can be developed further
and plans to support universities in providing best practice;
software; models and infrastructure to support institutional repositories
that hold research outputs. An important example of ongoing work
is the study that has recently reported on a delivery and access
model for Eprints and Open Access Journals. It should be noted
that the JISC sees a wider role for institutional repositories
for example for learning objects and other materials; particularly
as considerable economies of scale can be achieved by using common
infrastructure within an organisation. The JISC is liaising with
other countries on these issues as part of its active international
collaboration and is also working with other UK government agencies
to pursue this agenda. Already JISC is preparing to build on some
of the FAIR programme outputs including SHERPA's - for example
the need to maintain a rights database and to develop advocacy
materials to support submission to institutional repositories.
The provision of institutional repositories is a complex issue
and it involves cultural change, technical capability and capacity.
The JISC has developed an understanding of the associated issues
and plans to take forward activity that supports this recommendation
and the needs of academic institutions. This will include a major
new digital repositories programme from January 2005. To ensure
that institutional repositories are sustainable and that they
complement the publishing industry, work is required to develop
sound business models for the repositories. The JISC welcomes
the recommendations to establish further repositories and given
its existing role in this area across learning, teaching and research,
sees itself as the central body to co-ordinate the implementation
of a network of institutional repositories.
14. Recommendation 44 concerns the need to
motivate academic authors to self-archive in institutional repositories
and recommends that "the Research Councils and other Government
funders mandate their funded researchers to deposit a copy of
all their articles in a repository". The experience of repositories
developed through JISC funding has been that cultural rather than
technical problems are the greatest future barrier inhibiting
the growth of institutional repositories. In particular it has
been difficult to persuade academic authors to deposit journal
articles in a repository without support from funding agencies.
The JISC funded projects have helped build a body of experience
on ways in which author deposit can be motivated, but the lessons
from the JISC funded work can contribute to the understanding
of this issue and the JISC would be happy to cooperate with other
bodies in setting policy in this area.
15. Recommendation 46, 75, and 76 respectively
concern the roles of the British Library and institutional repositories
in digital preservation: "the DCMS provides funds for the
British Library to maintain a central online repository and ensure
the preservation of digital publications"; "failure
to give adequate funding to the BL could result in the loss of
a substantial proportion of the UK's scientific record",
and "Institutional repositories should be a key component
of any long-term strategy to ensure the preservation of digital
publications". The long-term preservation of repository content
which may include publications and other materials—particularly
content for which a university or college is unable to take responsibility—is
a serious concern. Long-term preservation is also a complex challenge
which is difficult for any one institution to address alone. Collaboration
across different organizations in this area is therefore essential.
The JISC has been working closely with British Library and other
institutions on organisational and technical problems to be overcome
in the preservation of all electronic content but more funding
is required. The JISC has recently commenced funding for a number
of projects to support digital preservation and asset management
in universities and colleges which will explicitly address preservation
and archiving issues for institutional repositories and test collaborative
models. These projects will involve a range of university computing
science and library departments and partners such as the British
Library and the National Archives. The JISC welcomes
these recommendations and is interested in further exploring how
the HE Funding Bodies, the JISC, the National Libraries and the
Research Councils, through the RLN, can work together to develop
a sustainable infrastructure supporting digital preservation of
a range of research materials.
16. Recommendation 48 concludes that "Government
must adopt a joined-up approach. DTI, OST, DfES and DCMS should
work together to create a strategy for the implementation of institutional
repositories". At present there is no national co-ordination
between repositories outside the FAIR Programme, a situation which
may result in the use of incompatible software and uneven standards
in the sharing of content. As the Report recognises, the content
in repositories has a national as well as a local value. The JISC
plays a key role in defining standards for the provision, storage
and use of digital information within the academic sector and
one of the main focus of its repository activity is to provide
specifications and functional requirements for repositories at
a local, regional, national and international level and for wide
ranging resources. The JISC believes that the work that it has
initiated to develop and implement a coherent standards framework
could usefully be built upon in this context. Part of this activity
will be taken forward in the JISC Digital Repositories Programme
from January 2005. The JISC welcomes this recommendation
and would welcome the opportunity to contribute its experience
in repository development to the formation of a national strategy.
17. Recommendations 49-51 rightly identify
the important role copyright ownership plays in either aiding
or hindering access to published research. "The issue of
copyright is crucial to the success of self-archiving. Provided
that it can be established that such a policy would not have a
disproportionately negative impact, Research Councils and other
Government funders should mandate their funded researchers to
retain the copyright on their research articles, licensing it
to publishers for the purposes of publication". The JISC
funded the RoMEO project which has received international recognition
for its work on documenting authors agreements and permissions
for institutional archiving across a range of leading publishers.
The JISC also funds a Legal Information Service and has commissioned
several reports on copyright, and is supporting international
initiatives—such as the work of the Zwolle Group—to
encourage fairer copyright management for academic content. The
JISC is about to embark on the production of best practice and
development of infrastructure to support copyright practices within
the scholarly communication process with particular attention
to author, publisher and academic institution relationships. This
work should report within the year. The JISC would welcome greater
understanding by the academic institutions of copyright issues.
18. Recommendation 64 concludes "that
the Research Councils each establish a fund to which their funded
researchers can apply should they wish to publish their articles
using the author-pays model". In its strategy the JISC has
taken a holistic view of information creation and access, so that
the publication activity is seen as part of the research process.
Given the high cost of purchasing subscriptions under the present
model, the author-pays model warrants further investigation.
19. Recommendation 69: the academic
community values the contribution made to research and teaching
by the learned societies and the JISC would not wish to see that
contribution weakened through a change in the journals business
model. As the Report recognises, the JISC has already made money
available to assist some learned society publishers who wish to
explore open access publishing to transfer their journals from
a subscription to an open access model. The JISC intends to
continue to provide support to those electing to explore this
model and to continue to review other journal business models.
20. Recommendation 70 supports further experimentation
with the author-pays publishing model and recommends that "in
the short term Government may need to provide limited financial
assistance to encourage publishers and institutions to take part
in what, for them, may be an expensive process. We applaud the
JISC for providing funding for this purpose so far and hope that
it will continue to do so". Over several years the JISC has
discussed with publishers the viability of an "author-pays"
publishing model. Publishers have been reluctant to release the
information about their costs necessary to evaluate viability
and this will be a crucial factor in the success or otherwise
of the "comprehensive independent study" recommended
in paragraph 150. The JISC is committed to a three-year programme
of short-term funding to Open Access publishers. The JISC will
award this funding on an annual basis to the publisher or publishers
who meet the required criteria.
Licensing Issues
21. Today, one in five publications is accessible
on line and more than 1,000 titles are listed in the "Directory
of Open Access Journals". Over the last ten years, however,
the average annual increase in the prices of scientific reviews
has approached 10%, a figure well in excess of GDP increases and
the average inflation rate. University libraries have therefore
seen their purchasing power decline since their budgets cannot
keep pace with price increases. There are, moreover, opportunities
for archiving and communication via the Internet.
22. Recommendation 6 concerns purchasing models
based upon access for a limited number of simultaneous users and
recommends that the JISC "strongly argues the case against
such restrictive practices when it negotiates the terms for the
next national site licence with publishers". Although this
practice is standard for some publishers, the JISC never agrees
to it. No JISC agreement is restricted to a number of simultaneous
users. The preferred model is that of a common national licence,
providing unlimited access to all registered users of libraries
in all universities and colleges able to take up the deals negotiated
by the JISC. The JISC welcomes this recommendation as an endorsement
of its approach in negotiating with publishers on this issue.
23. Recommendation 9 concerns the use of the
same journal content by both university and NHS staff and recommends
"that the JISC and the NHS work together to implement joint
procurement procedures that reflect the close working patterns
of NHS and the higher education sector and represent value for
money for both". The JISC and the NHS are already working
together to implement joint procurement procedures. Some content
has already been purchased through joint negotiations and discussions.
The JISC is leading a group that includes representatives from
the NHS England, NHS Scotland, NHS Wales, and NHS Northern Ireland
to procure jointly content for the HE and NHS communities. The
group is currently in discussions with publishers regarding a
joint procurement for an exemplar agreement. The process is being
designed to develop a roadmap for future joint procurements. The
JISC welcomes this recommendation as encouragement to develop
initiatives already underway.
24. Recommendation 10 concerns the reproduction
of digital copies of content needed for teaching purposes and
recommends "that future licensing deals negotiated by the
JISC explicitly include provisions to enable journal articles,
whether print or digital, to be used for teaching purposes".
Publishers have used the Copyright Licensing Agency both to control
the volume of copying and to secure additional revenue from the
academic community. The procedures involved and the cost to universities
and colleges have restricted the amount of copying—particularly
of digital content—academic staff have wished to do in order
to improve the effectiveness of their teaching. JISC's Model Licence
already ensures that electronic resources can be fully utilised
in learning and teaching. The relevant clauses allow for "use
and manipulation of copyright material" while protecting
that material from abuse. This means for example, that (providing
it is properly attributed) a lecturer can copy and paste text
from a journal article into a teaching material. However, the
lecturer may not amend the published text, and it is quite reasonable
that publishers restrict such amendments of copyright material.
A restriction in the JISC Model Licence states "For the avoidance
of doubt, no alteration of the words or their order is permitted".
The JISC welcomes this recommendation as strengthening its
negotiating position.
25. Recommendation 13 concerns the lesser
access anybody who is not a student or member of staff of a university
or college has to digital journals compared to access to printed
content. The recommendation is "that the next national
site licence negotiated by the JISC explicitly provides for all
library users without an Athens password to access the digital
journals stocked by their library". The JISC Model Licence
already provides for all library users, with or without an Athens
password. The licence refers to users in two categories, Authorised
Users and Walk-in Users.
a The licence defines "Authorised Users"
as the current members of the staff of the institution (whether
on a permanent, temporary, contract or visiting basis) and individuals
who are currently studying at the institution. Users in this category
are issued with individual Athens usernames and passwords. This
means that they can gain access to electronic resources via the
internet at any time and from any location; in other words they
do not need to be on library premises and are not limited to library
opening hours.
b The licence also contains a definition of "Walk-in
Users", covering all other permitted users of the library.
The licence permits these users to access electronic journals
and other electronic resources from workstations on the library
premises. The Athens system is sufficiently flexible to permit
this without Walk-in Users needing to be issued with an individual
username or password.
Thus far from being more restrictive, Athens authentication
widens access to electronic resources for Authorised Users (who
represent by far the majority of the library's registered users),
while offering Walk-in Users exactly the same level of access
to electronic materials as they have to traditional print publications,
i.e. access on library premises. For these reasons the JISC always
urges publishers to comply with the Athens standard. The JISC
welcomes this recommendation as strengthening its negotiating
position and will raise awareness within institutions to ensure
they fully understand the terms of the JISC model licence in this
regard.
26. Recommendation 16 arose from publishers'
evidence to the Science and Technology Committee regarding the
price per article in bundled deals. The recommendation is "that
the JISC develop an independent set of measures, agreed by subscribers
and publishers alike, to monitor trends in journal pricing. This
will help exert pressure on the publishing industry to self-regulate
more effectively and will give libraries and other users greater
knowledge when they are deciding which subscriptions to take".
Few publishers are willing to offer less than 7-8% increases
and there are some instances of up to an 18% increase in subscription
charges. The current journal price statistics, collected by the
Library and Information Statistics Unit at Loughborough University,
only give overall percentage increases. The JISC is currently
funding two studies that will help clarify this complex situation:
a The Analysis of Usage Statistics study: to
provide the JISC and its NESLi2 Negotiating Agent with accurate
data about the national use of electronic journals to inform future
negotiations. The study will analyse in depth usage data from
a representative sample of small, medium, large, and very large
academic libraries to ensure a full picture. The study will cover
a minimum of 3 publishers (and ideally 5) in order to provide
sufficient comparative data particularly for negotiating purposes.
b The Journals Business Models Study: to identify
the existing business models used by scholarly publishers in the
international market place and analyse the benefits and disadvantages
(including cost issues) to the library community. Models
to be analysed include: the big deal (which can be e only or electronic
plus print); individual title licences; e-versions of titles held
in print; subject clusters; core subscription plus pay per view;
and pay per view only. The study will also identify other business
models and analyse these in a similar way. This analysis will
explore amongst other things both usage based charging models
and open access initiatives.
The results of both these studies due to report in
December 2004
27. Recommendation 19 concerns continuing
access to digital content after a subscription has been cancelled
and recommends "that the JISC ensure that provision for continuing
access in the event of cancellation to articles published during
the subscription period is written into its next national licensing
deal". The JISC Model Licence provides for this. The clause
in the Licence means that on cancellation the publisher will provide
the subscribing institution with a copy of the relevant journals
on CD-ROM or provide access via their own server. This clause
also provides for a 'third party" to provide an archive of
the material, although no such third party is yet in place to
provide this service in the UK. It is always JISC policy to negotiate
for archival access but some publishers refuse to sign up to this
clause in the agreement, usually because they have a "moving
wall", which means they charge subscription fees for back
files. Other publishers will concede to a CD-ROM copy archival
copy, but not online access to backfiles. This is not an ideal
solution because the CD-ROM format is an unstable medium for archiving
and prone to corrupt and in order to facilitate access the library
must mount the CD-ROM content on it local network. The JISC
welcomes this recommendation as strengthening its negotiating
position but wishes to make two further points:
a The cost of maintaining ongoing internet access
to content is very high. It is understandable that publishers
are reluctant to freely provide this service to non-paying customers.
Central funding for a third party to host and deliver archival
copies of cancelled backfiles would alleviate this problem. The
JISC is also funding the evaluation of the LOCKSS Programme as
a viable solution for local archiving. LOCKSS creates low-cost,
persistent digital "caches" of authoritative versions
of electronic content. The LOCKSS software enables institutions
to collect locally, store, preserve, and archive authorised content
thus safeguarding their community's access to that content.
b The Select Committee Report does not highlight
the other problem regarding cancellations, which is that publishers
restrict the number of titles that an institution may cancel.
Cancellation is often restricted to a very small percentage of
a bundle. Thus, publishers force institutions to continue print
subscriptions to titles that are no longer relevant to their research
or teaching. It is JISC policy to negotiate for higher cancellation
levels - but the trend is for publishers to be reluctant to concede
this point. Publishers do not allow cancellations where the "Big
Deals" exist, because they fear that libraries will cancel
large numbers of titles, and thereby gain "highly discounted"
access to the same titles, under the "Big Deal" arrangement,
which would result in a significant drop in revenue for publishers.
28. Recommendation 20 that "Increasing
usage rates do not equate to an increased ability for libraries
to pay for journal bundles. The recent availability of usage statistics
should not be used as a justification for publishers to raise
their prices." Most of the "Big Deals" offered
by STM publishers use a charging model based on a library's historic
spend on printed journals, plus a supplementary charge for providing
access to these journals in electronic format. Access to electronic
titles not subscribed to in print is usually also covered by this
supplementary charge. NESLi2 negotiations have demonstrated that
some publishers are wishing to change their charging model so
that prices charged to individual libraries more accurately reflect
actual usage, rather than historic print spend. Publishers have
been quoting instances where there has been significant use of
previously unsubscribed titles as a justification of such an approach.
The data they present tends not to include counterbalancing figures
showing low or no-use titles. With the advent of electronic journals,
libraries have the opportunity to obtain robust quantitative data
about levels of periodical use and to analyse how far their investment
represents value for money. Good analysis of such data could be
a powerful tool in future negotiations with publishers when deals
are to be renewed, and could help to inform thinking about viable
alternative economic models for electronic journals. However,
in-depth analysis of this data is time-consuming for individual
libraries and may not be cost effective in the absence of useful
benchmarks. A national overview is required to help inform future
JISC negotiations on behalf of the community and assist institutions
in assessing the value for money provided by such deals. It might
also inform their purchasing decisions with respect to deals not
currently covered by NESLi2 but of high importance to them. Thus,
the JISC has funded an Analysis of Usage Statistics study referred
to in 3.15.i due to report at the end of 2004. The JISC agrees
with this recommendation.
29. Recommendation 21 goes on to conclude
that "Although libraries may aspire to provide access to
every scientific journal, they cannot afford to do this. It is
inevitable that difficult choices between a number of journals
with lower usage rates and impact factors will have to be made.
Nonetheless, these decisions should be made in response to local
user needs rather than as a side effect of bundling." The
report goes on in chapter 5 to discuss the ways in which collaborative
library procurement procedures at a national level can be tailored
to accommodate local needs. The benefits of NESLi2 are not fully
understood in this respect. In its first complete year NESLi2
negotiated agreements that provide for access to some 4500 journals
- depending on options chosen by each institution. Calculating
the savings that achieved through this initiative is not straightforward
because publishers" pricing policies vary considerably and
therefore no one "savings model" can be used. The savings
identified through NESLi2 directly relate to reductions achieved
in the price of journals. This saving does not include the other
less tangible savings realised through the appointment of central
agent to manage the process, such as a central point of information
and communication, a help desk, a model contract, and central
negotiations.
30. Recommendation 22 concludes that: "Current
levels of flexibility within the journal bundle do not present
libraries with value for money. Whilst we accept that unbundling
STM information carries risks for the main commercial publishers,
only when flexible bundled deals are made available will libraries
achieve value for money on their subscriptions. Furthermore, although
we recognise that bundled deals may be advantageous to libraries
in certain circumstances, we are concerned about the potential
impact bundling may have on competition, given limited library
budgets and sustained STM journal price growth". The JISC
funded studies referred to above will inform this debate, and
provide the JISC with the information it needs to take a lead
in shaping emerging business models that provide a viable alternative
to the "bundled deals". The JISC fully concurs with
this recommendation.
31. Recommendation 27 concerns transparency
in publishers' costs, enabling publicly-funded organisations to
know what elements a publisher has included in a cost calculation.
The recommendation is: "We urge the JISC and other buying
bodies to press for greater transparency in this area". The
JISC actively presses publishers to provide more information about
their costs, to determine value for money. The NESLi2 Negotiating
Agent always seeks to obtain, and thus pass on to educational
institutions, full details of how a publisher has calculated its
fees for electronic journals. The JISC has also been pressing
publishers to relax confidentiality clauses in contracts so that
we can know whether UK libraries are paying prices comparable
to libraries in other countries. The JISC welcomes the
recommendation for greater transparency in prices quoted by publishers
and looks forward to a positive response from publishers.
32. Recommendations 29-31 refer to
the payment of VAT on electronic content "We recommend
that HM Customs and Excise exempt libraries from the VAT currently
payable on digital publications whilst it negotiates for a more
permanent solution within the EU". The JISC agrees
that the differential rate on VAT hinders the transition from
print to electronic services.
33. Recommendation 40 points to the need for
a common national strategy for the purchase of journal subscriptions
and recommends "that the JISC negotiate with libraries, regional
purchasing consortia and other national bodies responsible for
procurement to agree a common strategy. Only by combining their
resources will they be able to negotiate a licensing deal that
secures national support and brings real benefits ".It should
be noted that the NESLi2 agreements are for electronic journals,
whereas the regional consortia tend to concentrate on print journals.
Procurement for Libraries and the regional consortia strike deals
predominantly with subscription agents (as opposed to publishers).
The JISC agrees that the purchasing power of all institutions
could combine to gain better terms for both print and electronic
journals and that NESLi2 and the regional purchasing consortia
should work more closely together. The JISC agrees with this
recommendation which links with the proposal already endorsed
by the JISC for a Research Libraries Network.
26 October2004
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