Subject: Mellon Grant Awarded to NISO to Encode E-Resource License
Templates in ONIX-PL
From: "Cynthia Hodgson" <chodgson_at_niso.org>
Date: 4/18/2013 11:29 AM
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded the National Information
Standards Organization a grant to support the encoding of a collection
of template licenses for e-resources into the ONIX for Publications
Licenses (ONIX-PL) format. The encodings will be deposited into the GOKb
and KB+ knowledgebase for free distribution to the library, publishing,
and library systems community. The deposited encodings—made available
under a Creative Commons Public Domain (CC-0) license—will allow
libraries that license electronic content to import the template
licenses into their own electronic resource management systems for
further local customization to match their negotiated license and
implementation. The project will also fund publicly available training
resources that will inform community members on how to use those
encodings for their own purposes.
JISC Collections, a division of the UK’s Joint Information Systems
Committee (JISC) that manages electronic content acquisitions for member
institutions of higher learning in the UK, has already encoded all of
the licenses for JISC Collections-subscribed content and deposited them
in their KnowledgeBase Plus (KB+) database. While KB+ has proven a
useful tool for institutions in the UK, it has not moved beyond this
venue because the encodings produced by the JISC Collections are
restricted to JISC members’ usage. To encourage ONIX-PL adoption and the
use of encoded licenses, JISC Collections provided additional funding to
support the project and provide training in the encoding format and the
ONIX-PL Editing software.
“The Global Open Knowledgebase (GOKb) is an element of the larger Kuali
OLE initiative to provide open source management systems to the library
and academic communities,” explains Nettie Lagace, NISO’s Associate
Director for Programs. “Now that the GOKb system is rapidly advancing,
there is an opportunity to populate the system with useful library
management information, such as these template license encodings. Much
like the success that the KB+ project has had in the UK, the GOKb
project has the potential to advance the state of library encodings in
the broader library community.”
“NISO has contracted with Selden Lamoureux to obtain the template
licenses, encode them in ONIX-PL format, and deposit the files in the
GOKb and KB+ knowledgebases,” states Todd Carpenter, NISO’s Executive
Director. “Selden has a long career working with electronic resource
management issues, licensing, and license encoding as Electronic
Resources Librarian at both North Carolina State University (NCSU) and
at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She was instrumental in
developing the NISO SERU (Shared Electronic Resource Understanding)
Recommended Practice, was a key leader in NISO’s work while she was at
NCSU, and served as co-chair of NISO’s SERU initiative.”
“ONIX-PL is elegant but very complex, since it’s designed to describe
the nuances of licenses which are extremely variable,” explains Selden
Lamoureux, Principle at SDLinforms and the consultant for this project.
“The use of the ONIX-PL standard to encode e-resource licenses has
suffered from a ‘Catch-22’ situation. Publishers and librarians have
little incentive to invest the time and effort to become proficient at
ONIX-PL encoding until there is a demonstrated benefit. Systems
developers have not prioritized implementation of ONIX-PL formatted
licenses in ERM systems because there was no source of encoded licenses
to import. The creation and availability of these template licenses will
encourage the use and adoption of the ONIX-PL standard, which, in turn,
will lead to greater ease and efficiencies in managing e-resources.”
“To ensure the use of these encodings and ongoing sustainability of the
project, NISO will be producing at least four recorded 60-to-90-minute
video training sessions,” states Juliana Wood, NISO Educational Programs
Manager. “The training will show librarians how to export a template
license from GOKb+, import it into an ERM system, and customize the
template to match an organization’s specific license terms. Some
training will be directed towards publishers, explaining how to encode
using ONIX-PL and deposit those encodings into GOKb and KB+. Thus
publishers will be able to update their own template licenses as needed.
The training materials will be available from the NISO website under a
Creative Commons Attribution license (CC BY).”
More information, including the project proposal, is available on the
NISO website at: www.niso.org/workrooms/onixpl-encoding/
Cynthia Hodgson
Technical Editor / Consultant
National Information Standards Organization
chodgson_at_niso.org
301-654-2512
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Received on Thu Apr 18 2013 - 19:05:12 EDT