Economics of Information Supply – is free information good enough?

Tom Roper

Head of Learning Resources, South Thames College

Tom Roper, Break-out session B

Mimi & Eunice http://mimiandeunice.com/

copyleft Nina Paley

Tom Roper, Break-out session B

A short introduction to further education

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Colleges

352 Colleges in England

22 Colleges and 2 FE institutions in Wales

43 Colleges in Scotland

6 Colleges in Northern Ireland

79.7% of 16-18 year-olds in education and training

Tom Roper, Break-out session B

Colleges in England

229 General Further Education Colleges (GFE)

93 Sixth Form Colleges (SFC)

16 land-based Colleges (AHC)

4 art, design and performing arts Colleges (ADPAC)

10 special designated Colleges (SD)

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Meat One and Plasterers Two

FE as I knew it circa 1971: CCAT

– VIth form college

– Adult education

– Vocational education

Tom Roper, Break-out session B

FE today

Diverse range of subjects, modes of study, funding

All the levels: from E to 7 (8=doctoral degrees)

But

– Little cooperation

– Little interoperability

– Little comparison

– Low horizons

Tom Roper, Break-out session B

HE in FE…or not

Open access

Scholarly communication

Institutional repositories

Falling visitor numbers

Shared services

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HE in FE

11% of higher education is delivered in FE colleges

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Source: Association of

Colleges

HE in FE

Licensing: when can FE college users use resources licensed by HEI?

Tom Roper, Break-out session B

South Thames College

Rapid expansion of e-content

Link librarians

STCLive/Sharepoint/Catalogue

Budget of £600,000

Merger

Restructuring

– New e-resources co-ordinator post

– Apprentices

– 30 staff (mostly part-time)

New flagship building

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What is free?

Arxiv, PubMed

Free at point of use…

– Institution pays or…

– Bill paid outside the institution

Licensed and unlicensed

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Expanding e-content

2008

– Infotrac

– Britannica

– Spellzone

– Authentik

2010

– 69 e-collections of one sort or another, 17 on paid subscription

– E-books for FE

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Types of free e-resource

JISC Collections material

– Rich, varied but..

Limited relevance to FE curriculum

Low levels of use, even of some obviously relevant tools

E-books for FE

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Types of free e-resource

Hairdressing training

Archival material

JORUM

Providers include:– British Library

– EDINA

– JSTOR

– Oxford University Press

– Proquest

Tom Roper, Break-out session B

Deploying free resources

Adding value:

– Describing and making discoverable

– Promoting

– Instructing

Future of JISC funding

Does pump-priming work?

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Low levels of use, in spite of our best efforts

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What’s coming?

Major cuts in funding

– More mergers

– Adult provision to be cut by £200 million

– Average cut of 16%...some as much of 25%

Bonfire of quangos

The return of the pay wall

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Sustainability

What happens when licences come up for renewal?

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What next?

The positives

– E-books

– HE in FE: leadership

Cf M25/ Kingston University

– HE can learn from FE too

Massification

Doing more with less

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The curious incident of the FE consortia

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The learner voice

‘Going to go library, innit’

Tom Roper, Break-out session B