Joint Information Systems Committee JISC New Business Models Briefing Session : ICOLC 2005 Lorraine Estelle JISC Collection Team Manager

Joint Information Systems Committee Background: This briefing session will examine the role of the JISC and NESLi2 in light of the dynamic and changing business environment for scholarly publishing The JISC serves a diverse community of over 180 Higher Education Institutions JISC funds NESLi2 to provide a single body to undertake electronic journal negotiations on behalf of the whole higher and further education community and research councils

Joint Information Systems Committee Business Models The JWG comprises a group of librarians who represent the diverse range of institutions eligible for NESLi2 deals. They provide a range of expertise and advice to the NESLi2 Negotiation Agent. The Group is chaired by Dr Tom Graham, University Librarian, University of Newcastle upon TyneJWG The JWG over the past three years implemented a plan to explore alternative business models to help find a middle ground. These models should encourage usage generally and offer viable options to both publishers and librarians This work has included ‘seed funding’ for Open Access publishers and the commissioning of two studies that would provide the group and the NESLi2 negotiating agent with information about the usage of journals in the UK and the potential of the various business models for scholarly publications:

Joint Information Systems Committee Open Access Funding Initiative Funding of £150,000 awarded to five open access over three years. In 2005 funding was awarded to: The New Journal of Physics (published by the Institute of Physics Publishing); Nucleic Acids Research (Oxford University Press) Journal of Medical Genetics (BMJ Publishing Group Ltd) Journals of the International Union of Crystallography (IUCr) The Journal of Experimental Botany (The Society for Experimental Biology). JISC funding will ensure the waiving of all or part of the submission/publication fees for all JISC community authors. A further round of funding is shortly to be announced for 2006 The JISC Journals Working Group has announced funding for an evaluation of this initiative, its impact on publishers, libraries and authors The outcomes of the evaluation will inform JISC’s future investment in trialling alternative scholarly communications models once the current Open Access initiative ends

Joint Information Systems Committee JISC Funded Studies In 2004 the JISC Journals Working Group commissioned two studies: Business Models for Content undertaken by Rightscom Ltd NESLI2 analysis of usage statistics study undertaken by Evidence Base

Joint Information Systems Committee Business Models for Content undertaken by Rightscom Ltd An analytical study to understand the underlying causes of the present concerns of the libraries and to analyse the current business models to identify their strengths and weaknesses, and to assess potential for new business models A wide range of libraries and publishers were interviewed to assess their requirements and objectives

Joint Information Systems Committee Library priorities Interviews showed that the ‘fundamental concern for libraries is to facilitate the widest access to the most appropriate resources’ ‘Libraries dislike restricting access and reject models that involve budgetary unpredictably and might involve them policing usage’ ‘A strong need to reduce or at least contain costs’

Joint Information Systems Committee Publisher Priorities Priorities of most publishers interviewed are ‘continuing their business at current or better levels of profitability’. ‘Publishers would like predictability as much as libraries’ – ‘pay per view models were difficult for everyone.’ ‘Most of the publishers felt that the existing NESLi2 model suffered from being an opt-in model and take up is not always as high as hoped’

Joint Information Systems Committee The alternative models The study explored with publishers and the library community the perceived benefits an weaknesses of the following alternative business models: –National licence –PPV converting to subscription –PPV pre-purchase –Core + peripheral –Open access - author pays –Open access - hybrid –Sponsored content

Joint Information Systems Committee Summary No business model will reconcile library needs to control costs with the publishers’ needs to maintain or increase revenues Changes in commercial business models may help find a middle ground Models that encourage usage generally popular with publishers and the library community Models would appear to offer opportunity for transitions rather than long term solutions Author-pays open access remains unproven Three models were identified by the publishing and library community for trialing are: –PPV converting to subscription –National licence –Core + peripheral

Joint Information Systems Committee Business Models: Implementation of recommendations National Licence The current funding structure does not allow for a top slice national licence – however an experiment in this year with ‘single payment’ deals with selected NELSLi2 publishers 2006 will see the implementation of trials for two of the proposed models: Pay Per View converting to subscription Core plus peripheral Participating libraries and publishers have been identified and the trials are scheduled to commence in October 2005

Joint Information Systems Committee NESLI2 analysis of usage statistics study undertaken by Evidence Base : Slide 1 The study demonstrated that for most libraries the average cost per request is low in relation to the cost of an inter-library loan (£4.99 for the form alone) and normally considerably lower than pay per view on the current models (currently around £18-22 per request). A comparatively small percentage of titles generated high usage (100 requests or over) across all institutions. Titles receiving nil or low use (under 10 requests) in the band A-B old universities were mainly drawn from the unpriced and low price (under £200) range. This indicated good use of most of the titles in the deal, including unsubscribed titles.

Joint Information Systems Committee NESLI2 analysis of usage statistics study undertaken by Evidence Base : Slide 1 Titles in the STM subject category are the most heavily used overall. The study demonstrates considerably lower use of HSS titles than those in the STM area, especially in the higher usage ranges (100 requests and over). Costs of unsubscribed titles for each institution varied according to the conditions of each deal and the JISC band or other grouping used by the publisher. Overall, these costs were considerably below list prices, as was demonstrated by the yield figure for unsubscribed titles devised by the study team.

Joint Information Systems Committee NESLI2 analysis of usage statistics study Recommendations: Slide 2 The study found that Library staff would welcome support with the collection of data and analysis of data in relation to publisher deals. The study recommends that: ‘JISC should consider setting up a portal site for NESLi2 publishers to deposit their national NESLi2 COUNTER compliant usage statistics. This would facilitate the regular monitoring of the statistics. The portal could also provide a single gateway for libraries to access their individual library COUNTER statistics from publishers and aggregators.’ The JISC is funding a feasibility study to explore this recommendation. This study will explore issues such the technology, cost and confidentiality of publishers material

Joint Information Systems Committee Usage Statistics – Slide 2 Alternatives to the NESLi2 Opt in Model: ‘One possibility would be for the JWG to examine ways in which NESLi2 deals can be negotiated as one single national deal with a single list of titles available to all libraries wishing to purchase journals from a specific publisher. This would involve moving from the current loose consortia model to a closed consortia model. Such a move would have the added benefit of providing the with a stronger negotiating position.’ As already stated this year will see an experiment in with ‘single payment’ deals with selected NELSLi2 publishers

Joint Information Systems Committee JISC Studies just published The JISC Scholarly Communications Group has commissioned a number of studies that might be of interest. Two just published are: JISC Disciplinary Differences Report – Sue Sparks, Rightscom The major developments taking place in scholarly publishing present researchers in the UK with many new opportunities and challenges. Differences between disciplines, both in terms of resources used and means of dissemination of results, are widely believed to be significant. This report aims to provide a more factual basis to some of these assumptions through a survey of UK-based academic researchers JISC: Learned Society Open Access Business Models – Mary Waltham The focus of this study is an in-depth exploration of nine learned society journal business and pricing models in the context of their societies and the Open Access business model. Eight of the publishers are based in the UK and one in the USA. The study considers whether and how OA can be adapted by the representative sample of STM publishers who agreed to participate in the study by providing full circulation, revenue and cost data for inclusive ss%20Models.doc ss%20Models.doc

Joint Information Systems Committee Thank you for listening Lorraine Estelle JISC Collections Abridged version of the Business Models for Content study and the NESLI2 analysis of usage statistics study are available from the NESLi2 website: