CONSORTIUM PURCHASING FOR UK UNIVERSITIES THROUGH THE JISC Frederick J. Friend JISC Scholarly Communication Consultant Honorary Director Scholarly Communication UCL

WHAT IS THE JISC AND WHAT DOES THE JISC DO? The JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee) is a sub- committee of the Higher Education Funding Council for England and the higher and further education funding councils in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland JISC's activities support education and research by promoting innovation in new technologies and by the central support of ICT services. JISC provides: A world-class network - JANET Access to electronic resources New environments for learning, teaching and research Guidance on institutional change

HOW JISC MANAGES ACCESS TO RESOURCES Progress in improving access to resources is directed principally through two JISC committees: Content Services and Integrated Information Environment These committees have a number of working groups, e.g. Journals Working Group, E-Books Working Group, Scholarly Communication Group These committees and groups consist of members of the JISC Executive, staff of JISC Collections (the company set up by JISC to manage its content activities), and representatives of the UK academic and library communities Content purchase deals are negotiated by the staff of JISC Collections or by agents appointed by JISC Collections Policy issues related to access (e.g. the move to open access) are directed by the Integrated Environment Committee and the Scholarly Communication Group

FIRST UK NATIONAL SITE LICENCE The Pilot Site Licence Initiative set up by the UK Higher Education Funding Councils aimed “to make academic journals cheaper and more accessible for academics and students” (N.B. JISC advised the Funding Councils but was not managing the Initiative directly) Agreements with Academic Press, Blackwell Publishers, Blackwell Science and IOPP for three years Successful in improving access to the journals of the four publishers Successful in reducing cost of journals to individual libraries – but at a high cost in top-sliced funding from the overall UK higher education budget Conclusion: created interest in nationally-negotiated deals but the PSLI model was not scalable to a large number of publishers

NESLI As a result of the PSLI experience JISC set up the National Electronic Site Licence Initiative (NESLI) Retained the benefits of a single national negotiation and access to a wide range of journals but reduced the overall cost by adopting an “opt-in” model, i.e. individual universities could decide to buy or not to buy the deals negotiated nationally according to their local needs Used a model licence agreed with publishers as part of the negotiation (this saves time for publishers and universities) JISC managed the Initiative through its Journals Working Group but appointed an agent (Swets) to undertake the negotiation on JISC’s behalf When the Swets contract came to an end, the JISC Journals Working Group re-badged the service as NESLi2 and offered a new contract as Managing Agent to Content Complete Ltd

NESLi2 (ongoing) Content Complete negotiate using criteria set by the Journals Working Group, enabling the level of success to be measured The NESLi2 service currently offers packages of journals from 19 publishers (6841 journals) to UK universities and colleges Of 175 UK higher education institutions 130 take at least one of the NESLi2 deals The NESLi2 deals save the UK higher education budget approx. GB£2 million per annum Most publishers accept the NESLi2 Model Licence but usually ask for some small changes The Model Licence is up-dated every year to reflect changing academic needs (and will be in machine-readable format) As an “opt-in” service NESLi2 has limitations but still offers good value for money

EXAMPLES OF OTHER SUCCESSFUL JISC CONTENT DEALS JISC Collections negotiated the purchase of the Royal Society of Chemistry journal backfiles at a cost of GB£500 per annum per institution (the price before the JISC deal was GB£25,000 plus GB£500 per annum) The JISC deal for ISI Web of Science saves the UK higher education budget GB£5.69 million per annum The JISC deal for DigiMap saves the UK higher education budget GB£4 million per annum JISC Collections purchased a permanent licence to Early English Books Online, now made available to UK universities and colleges at a lower cost than each institution would pay if purchasing direct Flexible licences were negotiated for use of 3000 e-books from Wiley Interscience Information on the content negotiated or purchased by JISC is available at

JISC POLICIES TO IMPROVE ACCESS TO RESOURCES Consortium purchase is not the only route to improved access Changes in business models or in the information environment can also improve access JISC has been promoting academic-friendly policies and procedures for some years through the Integrated Environment Committee and the Scholarly Communication Group Support for open access developments, both “green” and “gold”, is a major feature of JISC’s work JISC has also worked for more academic-friendly copyright arrangements, e.g. the use of a licence to publish instead of copyright transfer by authors JISC promotes the use of the UK academic network to enable the opportunities in the electronic environment to be realised

SOME PERSONAL CONCLUSIONS DRAWN FROM THE UK EXPERIENCE A national consortium can save money for universities and libraries A national consortium can increase access to all types of digital content (not only journals) for researchers and students To be effective the consortium needs support from funding bodies and regular contact with the community it serves A consortium needs to be strong in its negotiation with content-suppliers and be ready to say “no” to unsatisfactory deals A consortium with the power to commit all its members can achieve the greatest savings but an “opt-in” consortium can still be effective Licensing terms are as important as price and a model licence can save content-providers and consortium members time Negotiation is a professional task and using an agent can be cost-effective Purchasing is not the only way a consortium can improve access to electronic resources

THANK YOU FOR LISTENING! Here are some web-sites you may find useful: The main JISC web-site is at The JISC Collections web-site is at The NESLi2 web-site is at The JISC Content Services Committee web-page is at The JISC Integrated Environment Committee web-page is The JISC Scholarly Communications Group web-page is aspx