Procurement of e-content: the costs of collaboration

1. 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 07

2. 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 07

3. 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 07

4. 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 07

5. Organisational issues • Communication • Ownership • Organisational restructuring • Cost saving imperative • Role/contribution/needs for independent health libraries • NeSLI deals • User needs assessment AWHILES July 07

6. 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 07

7. 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 07

8. 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 07

9. 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 07

10. 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 07

11. 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 07

12. 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 07

13. Ways forward • Information sharing/advocacy (collection development activities) • Technical support • Consortial procurement AWHILES July 07

14. 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 07

15. Technical support • Streamlined content management • Authentication AWHILES July 07

16. 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 07

17. 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 07

18. 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 07

19. References • Article to appear in Interlending and Document Supply • Report available from http://cadair.aber.ac.uk, handle AWHILES July 07