www.eduserv.org.uk

Licensing – the Teenage Years – Muddled, Mucky and Misunderstood

Martyn Jansen, Contracts & Legal ManagerJIBS 2nd April 2014

IT Solutions

UK Access Management Federation

Scoped Affiliation Values

 

defined value notes

student undergraduate or postgraduate

staff uk term for all staff

faculty us term to distinguish teaching staff

employee other staff/faculty (eg contractor)

member comprises all the above

affiliate relationship short of full member

alum alumnus (graduate)

library-walk-in general library privileges

Aston University – transforming online information access

Issues• 9,500 students• licensed access increasingly complex• more diverse types of users• students and staff spending more time working off campus• the University expanding its international partnerships

Results• vastly improved library services to students and staff• user queries and complaints cut by up to 70%• cuts time to access resources to seconds compared to minutes or

even not at all • reduces time library staff spend fire fighting minor problems • enables international partnerships, multiple user types are easy to

set up and manage

Licensing challenges – Other Authorised Users

• many different types

• insufficient distinction

• constant change

• lack of consistency

• no publisher consensus

• attempts to aggregate limited success

Licensing possibilities

• focus on number of users not type

• focus on usage not users no resell no sublicensing use for research or educational purposes

only, applies to partners

Licensing possibilities

• much simpler licence

• no definition/categorisation of different user types

• similar to commercial software licensing

2 Grant of Licence

2.1 Upon receipt of the Licensee’s purchase order(s) for

the Software and Service, the Licensor grants the Licensee a

non-exclusive, non-transferrable licence to load, install and use

the Software for the Licensee’s own internal business purposes

for an open-ended term, subject to the terms and conditions of

this Agreement and the Licensee hereby accepts such licence.

2.2 This licence is granted for unlimited instances on a

single server…

Licensing consequences

• remove granularity

• HE/FE community: payment by user volume

• publishers: confident of incremental revenue

complex problems require complex solutions

thank-youmartyn.jansen@eduserv.org.uk