AWHILES July 071 Procurement of e-content: the costs of collaboration Christine Urquhart Research team included: Siân Spink, Department Information Studies,UWA; Andrew Cox, University of Sheffield; and HEA-ICS

AWHILES July 072 Aims and objectives of project Aim to inform potential joint activity by the NHS-HE Procurement Group in the area of licensing health related electronic resources Objectives Assess the organizational and technical structures for joint activities Identify common interests in terms of content, functionality and licensing terms Identify areas of duplication of licensing of e-content Map stakeholders needs, priorities, current activity and timetables

AWHILES July 073 Methods Telephone interviews with stakeholders (39: national/home country, education sector, collective agencies, commercial stakeholders) Web-based surveys (poor response) Workshop (July 06, 11 registered delegates plus speakers)

AWHILES July 074 Organisational issues Home country differences NHS Scotland (NHS led) Wales (UWCM impetus) Northern Ireland (health+social care, QUB) Questions Better for NHS or for HE to lead? Level of collaborative procurement? National versus sub-national? Working with FE (underdeveloped)

AWHILES July 075 Organisational issues Communication Ownership Organisational restructuring Cost saving imperative Role/contribution/needs for independent health libraries NeSLI deals User needs assessment

AWHILES July 076 Mission statement? Customers: NHS staff and students, HE staff and students (and CHILL) Actors: NHS & HE agents working with suppliers Transformation: Specified e-content requirements to be provided according to customer needs (specialist and/or general e-content) Worldview: E-content is required ubiquitously for education, practice and research Owners: ? (biggest purses?) Environment: Budgetary restraints, RAE, evidence- based practice and clinical governance

AWHILES July 077 Technical infrastructure Many parties need to agree Shibboleth – promising but who is to do the management of attribute information? HE – quality of service concerns Training and support

AWHILES July 078 Common content needs NHS constituency widening to non- clinical staff, specialist groups of staff – HE already cover much of this content ? Needs of the non-professional staff (FE?) NHS core content journals mapping to Specialist Libraries

AWHILES July 079 Directions for common content E-books (developing market, publishers more open to influence) E-learning material (but HE set-ups for VLEs vary) Already open access / free content / repositories Licensing timescales on existing deals usually 12 months maximum

AWHILES July 0710 Value added features HE/NHS – common interface (mixed views) Synthesised content – need pilots to assess reaction, links with EPR Robust and reliable access to backfiles for journals Ease of integration into NHS systems Full text linking, pop-up for document delivery COUNTER compliant statistics (but e-books?)

AWHILES July 0711 Scope of licence/negotiations Off site access Content stability Print cancellation/substitution Concurrent user licences not realistic for student use Cost per use/usage statistics Critical mass to help define a core and negotiate a discount Secondary use of e-content

AWHILES July 0712 Reducing barriers Redefining core Readjusting national core versus regional + local topping up Working towards realistic user profiling (more content = more browsing, less in-depth reading?)… Greater awareness of niche needs – or just relying on the long tail in the bundle? Reaching the non-NHS staff working for the NHS in the independent sector or social care

AWHILES July 0713 Ways forward Information sharing/advocacy (collection development activities) Technical support Consortial procurement

AWHILES July 0714 Information sharing/advocacy Sharing knowledge about deals – across NHS and HE (and FE) Working with suppliers on licence terms More negotiating power – but informed Better understanding and interpretation of usage data Repositories – and repository software

AWHILES July 0715 Technical support Streamlined content management Authentication

AWHILES July 0716 Consortial negotiations Level? (national, regional, local?) With other bodies (CHILL, public libraries?) Flexibility versus purchasing muscle By media – e.g. e-books or by subject content? Identifying market segments

AWHILES July 0717 Consortia processes Goal and scope need to be clear Actors – and primary actors to be identified Stakeholders need to be identified Preconditions – and post-conditions after process has run Extensions/alternative routes Risks – and actions to be taken

AWHILES July 0718 Conclusions Collaboration on e-content procurement should ideally follow other joint collection development activities could use some foresight in health to identify developing clinical/research areas should clarify processes, roles and expected outcomes (use cases) could analyse usage statistics more carefully

AWHILES July 0719 References Article to appear in Interlending and Document Supply Report available from handle