Electronic Resources in the Virtual Learning

Licence models for digital texts
A number of different licence models exist for digital texts and some
publishers have created their own models which may take into account
actual usage of the material. In the UK, following detailed studies by
JISC and the Publishers Association back in the late 1990s as part of the
eLib Programme, two types of licence for digital readings were devised
which are quite different to the way other electronic resources are
licensed. The two models are known as:
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Electronic Resources in the Virtual Learning Environment
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textbook purchase substitution/bookshop model;
■
library purchase substitution.
The textbook substitution model is based on the notion of digital
readings being an electronic course pack, analogous with a paper course
pack that is a prepared set of readings for students on a particular
course. This model is sometimes called the ‘bookshop model’. The
premise is that students are using the digital text in place of a textbook
which they would otherwise have gone out and purchased. Therefore,
publishers are seeking to maintain their profits and ensure that the
pricing of the licence covers any potential reduction in the sale of
textbooks. The general model is that readings are paid for on the basis
of the length of the article and the number of students on the course.
This is the most common type of licence currently being offered to
academic institutions either through the CLA, CCC or directly from
publishers.
The advantages of this licence are:
■
that you only pay for the number of students on the course so it is
possible to license readings for small numbers of students and so
specialist courses are not penalised;
■
that it allows flexibility when teaching staff update reading lists and
payments for materials are only made for a limited period of time.
However, there are a number of disadvantages, including:
■
it can be difficult to predict the exact numbers of students on a course,
in particular for new courses;
■
there are no economies of scale, so that when licensing readings for
large courses, high costs can be entailed;
■
when readings are required for several academic years they need to be
renewed each year, with a new licence fee being paid.
The second type of licence is analogous with the purchase of a book by
a library and is generally used for readings which a student would not
have been expected to purchase, but might have been purchased by the
library as background reading. This model allows the reading to be
recommended to any student at an institution and is generally a more
cost-effective way of licensing electronic texts. Readings licensed under
this model are often obtained for five years, which again can make them
more cost-effective. Only a limited number of publishers offer this type
of licence, an example being Oxford University Press.
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Copyright and licensing digital texts
Despite a JISC/Publishers Association recommendation back in 1997
to fix prices to no more than 5p per page per students, pricing policies
are set by individual publishers and there is enormous variation (Bide et
al., 1997). The standard model of pricing is to base the cost on the length
of the articles in terms of numbers of pages and the number of students
on the course for which the reading has been recommended. This model
has a number of inherent problems, specifically because providing access
to core readings in digital format is primarily motivated by the desire to
ensure large numbers of students can obtain access to a key text.
However, under the current pricing model, the price increases in line
with the increase in numbers of students on the course. Therefore there
are no cost benefits to making a reading available to a large group of
students as opposed to a smaller group.
Electronic books (e-books), particularly electronic versions of
textbooks, are one development that may alter this market. There is an
increasing number of e-book deals that are available to subscribing
libraries. These are discussed in Chapter 1, but rather than paying for
individual titles, publishers are making larger collections available under
licence. In general the collection is licensed on an institution-wide basis,
and the pricing model is more similar to that of electronic journals.