Innovative Knowledge Exchange activities in licensing and access management

Innovative Knowledge Exchange activitiesin licensing and access management

Bo Öhrström, DEFF Jason Campbell, JISCUKSG 7-9 April 2008Torquay

UKSG, Torquay, 7-9 April 2008 2

Session plan

• Knowledge Exchange introduction (Bo)• Multinational licensing tender (Bo)• Access management (Jason)• Questions and answers (Jason and Bo)


Contents

• Knowledge Exchange introduction– Partners, mission, way of working, activities, vision

• Multinational licensing tender (Bo)– Background for multinational licensing tender– Proces of tendering– Results of the tender– Pros of the tender procedure– Cons of the tender procedure– Balancing pros and cons


Denmark’s Electronic Research Library(Denmark)

German Research Foundation (DFG)(Germany)

Joint Information Systems Committee(United Kingdom)

SURFfoundation(Netherlands)

Who is Knowledge Exchange (KE)?

http://www.deff.dk/

http://www.dfg.de/

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/


KE Mission and Approach Mission

to develop closer working relationships between the partner organisations in order to increase the return on national investment in ICT infrastructure, services and projects in higher education and research.

Approach

By sharing knowledge, exploring differences, collaborating and promoting international dialogue, the Knowledge Exchange seeks to:

• add genuine value to the activities of the partners, which requires infrastructure and services developed in collaboration organisations by fostering closer working relationships between those organisations at all levels

• support the European agenda by promoting better access to information resources in higher education and research

• create the optimal virtual environment for Higher Education and Research Community who need to choose from a wide array of possible technologies and approaches


How does KE work?

Structural exchange …

• Partner Reps meet frequently to exchange developments within the four organisations

• Continuous process of spotting opportunities, brokering between demand and supply from within the organisations

• Procure overviews on topics of mutual interest: state-of-affair reports comparing level of development, ambitions and issues to be solved

• Analyse and synthesize findings and propose next steps to proceed

• Strategic management meet regularly and formulate shared vision

… to support improved decisions

• Organise expert workshops (invite specialists outside Knowledge Exchange) or conduct further research that will lead to recommendations for the partner organisations – the core business of Knowledge Exchange!

• Each partner individually decides to follow the recommendation or not, embark in joint or separate action


Activities the years 2005 - 2008

Partner perspectives Strategic vision Sustainability European Commission

Issues of national priority National licences Institutional repositories Open Access Trust Federations (Shibboleth)

Emerging issues Virtual Research Environments Research & Primary data European Digital Library

Continuous brokerage on emerging projects to identify experts to provide prior knowledge alerts to conferences & events international partnerships


A strategic vision To make a layer of scholarly and scientific content openly available on the Internet

• Building an integrated repository infrastructure

• Exploring new developments in the future of publishing

• Facilitating integrated management services within education and research institutions

• Supporting the European digital libraries agenda Utrecht, January 2008


Knowledge Exchange Vision

• Building an integrated repository infrastructure

A robust interoperable network of repositories will form the backbone for science and scholarship in the 21st century. Repositories can store and make available a diverse range of scientific and scholarly output, facilitating the Open Access agenda of making research and teaching materials freely available.

In an interoperable network, repositories enable powerful new forms of collaboration and communication among researchers as well as between teachers and students.

• Exploring new developments in the future of publishing Enabling access to research means creating a new environment for publishing in which the diverse range of products of science and scholarship are openly available. This means working with publishers to find new licensing models and platforms for the output of research.

It also means working with researchers and funding agencies to support the Open Access agenda and the transition from text to data publication.


Background for multinational licensing tender (1)

• Discussions at JISC’s Annual Conference 2006 concerning international license cooperation and access

• Initial management meeting in Bonn July 2006 created a framework (Bonn Accord)– publishers will continue to play an essential role in

evaluating and distributing literature– partner organisations currently use different models &

strategies for the procurement of digital content on a national level

– engagement for a joint pilot project to procure digital content


Background for multinational licensing tender (2)

• Working group meeting, September 2006– General questions for the joint activity:

• Which models (subscription, author paid or ?)• Institutional or national licenses (national is all institutions or

whole population/country?)• Legal issues (who signs?)• Administrative issues (who invoices?)• Timeframe issues (running deals?)• Transparency issues (confidentiality clauses)• Buying issues (per product, directly or specific tender?)• Organisational issues (partner differences in working

methods and financing) – Proposal: joint tender


Worries for tendering

• No experience in joint tenders for electronic resources

• Strict process with fixed timeframes and limited flexibility

• Products are not well defined “tender products”

• Products have not been defined by the users (libraries)

• Need of more legal assistance

• Probably more time and effort consuming


Reasons for tendering

• Lack of innovation among publishers:

– in creating new business models for electronic resources

– in creating new access strategies for content

• Tender creates a ‘virtual marketplace’ to engage the publishing community

• Transparency for benchmarking national licence and framework agreements

• Create a route to market for content often left out of national deals

• Forward move of Bonn Accord while minimising many risks involved

• Leave the thinking to the publishers


Different tender procedures

• Open procedure (all without prior selection, 52 days)• Restricted procedure (shortlist, 37 + 40 days)• Negotiated procedure (very special)• Competitive dialogue (shortlist after dialogue, 37 + 40

days)


EU Competitive Dialogue Procedure

Conduct of the procedure• Request for Information

– contracting authority makes known its ‘needs & requirements’ in contract notice & defines them in Descriptive document

• Dialogue with bidders– aimed at identifying & defining means best suited to satisfy needs

contracting authority

• Descriptive document– detailed award criteria specified on the basis of which bidders have

formulate their proposals.

• Award of contract– assessment on basis of award criteria & most economically

advantageous tenders


Time frame tender procedure

• Request for Information– issue Request for Information‚ 14 February 2007.

– deadline for responding, 23 March 2007

• Dialogue– decision about which bids to move forward 30 March 2007.

– one by one interviews with selected bidders 16 April 2007.

• Descriptive document– issue Descriptive document, 18 July 2007– deadline for responding, 27 August 2007


What did we ask of the publishers

Working group compiled 2 types of lists• basic list representing research universities

• extended list defining other affiliated institutions

Bids must contain:• Final prices (no negotiation on fees)

• Single fee for all institutions on basic & extended list for each country

• Opt in framework should show an innovative character:

– discount structure based on participation through subscriptions in basic list

– requirement to offer discount level to subscribing institutions in both lists

– tiered pricing differentiating institutions in basic & extended list.


Award criteria

• 3 overarching criteria:– innovation and value for money offered by the proposal (40 %)– level of compliance with the access strategy (10 %)– fit of content to the academic strategy of the country (50 %)

• Aim for consensus between the four partners


What do we offer the publishers

• No allocated money but:

– provisions for a route to market to 190 research universities & large teaching universities

– endorsement and promotion of the bids to the libraries

– provisions for a single point for contact resulting in better efficiency

– reduction in administration costs for the publisher


Result of the tender procedure

Final offers from nine publishers from the target group

– decision to conclude agreement with five publishers

• Final offers for journals, e-books and databases

• Pleasingly pleasant score on the criteria set for innovation and value for money

• Interesting discounts for multinational licensing


Products and plan

• Products– SWETS / ALPSP: Collection of more than 400 journals from

more than 40 – BioOne: Bioscience research journals– MultiScience Direct: 14 engineering journals– The Scientific World: Journal in the life sciences– Wiley-Blackwell: Package of e-books

• Plan– Signing agreements and press release in April – May– Marketing and offers to the institutions immediately after in all

four countries


Cons of the tender

• Time consuming process– time frame of tender procedure itself

– writing the several documents with severe deadlines

– evaluating the bids by markers

• Process rather inflexible:– careful structuring of bids needed

– no further negotiations on prices/licences possible

– bid is final bid but considerations could possibly influence bid

• Takes up time & money of the organisations involved– strong committment of the organisations needed

• Still difficulties to estimate whether prices are fair• Libraries are offered content they have not asked for


Pros of the tender

• Ability to benchmark the prices • Higher degree of transparency• Reaching a group of interesting/unknown publishers which normally

are not on the short- or longlist of consortia• Some innovative business models & access strategies• Fees don’t reflect former print collections• Worthwhile discounts especially on multinational level• Concept of national licences comes into view because of economies

of scale• Model licence with most favourable provisions of the 4 countries• Test system for multinational negotiation and national

implementation


Balancing pros and cons

• Fairly positive evaluation:– discussions about & attention for drafting new business models– attention for access strategies– thorough evaluation of the bids on several aspects– transparency & clarity gained– efforts of publishers to come with appealing offers– valuable information regarding possible deals & structuring the

process– active part in shaping the market– working group fulfilled part of very ambitious vision of KE– important upgrade of common skills in the group– achived knowledge can improve national efforts


Thank you!

KE Tender working group:• Wilma Mossink (SURFfoundation/SURFdiensten)• Nol Verhagen (University of Amsterdam/SURFdiensten)• Lorraine Estelle (JISC)• Max Vögler (DFG)• Hildegard Schäffler (Bavarian State Library)• Markus Brammer (German National Library on Science &

Technology)• Anette Schneider (DEFF)• Bo Öhrström (DEFF)

Documents

Innovative Knowledge Exchange activities in licensing and access management