I'm a librarian looking at my budget for next year. We're going to have to make
some difficult decisions so we'd like to compare the coverage of our journals, the
effectiveness of ebook platforms and the spread of databases. How can we compare
the different subscriptions and how useful they are?
Have you tried the JISC Collections tool 'ADAT'? It acts like an online shopping
comparison website by showing statistics about your subscriptions, ebook platforms
and databases side by side.
www.jisc-adat.com/adat
Outsourcing our student email looks like a logical way to save our institution money.
Are there any hidden costs?
At the moment, your in-house budget for student email will be taking into account
the cost of servers, data storage, back-up and archiving. If you compare this with outsourcing to an external provider, you might find that the cost of a similar service is as low as 5% of the in-house cost, or more typically 10-30% of what you currently pay.
But be careful – often when comparing the costs between running a service in-house and outsourcing, comparisons are made on providing identical services, which may not be fair. Try to work out what an average student would use. Just because an external provider allows each user to have 6GB of data storage, this may not be a storage level required by the majority of students.
Support for users is one area that can be a hidden cost once the service is up and running. From our experience of colleges and universities that have gone down this road, these costs seem to be comparable to the support costs of an in-house service. You need to be aware that your students and support staff may find it hard to adapt to a system where the only response to a problem is to wait for it to be fixed by a helpdesk that sits outside your college or university.
Take a look at our 'Outsourcing Email and Data Storage' briefing paper for a full discussion of the considerations before you make a decision: www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/publications/bpoutsourcinglongv1.pdf
But be careful – often when comparing the costs between running a service in-house and outsourcing, comparisons are made on providing identical services, which may not be fair. Try to work out what an average student would use. Just because an external provider allows each user to have 6GB of data storage, this may not be a storage level required by the majority of students.
Support for users is one area that can be a hidden cost once the service is up and running. From our experience of colleges and universities that have gone down this road, these costs seem to be comparable to the support costs of an in-house service. You need to be aware that your students and support staff may find it hard to adapt to a system where the only response to a problem is to wait for it to be fixed by a helpdesk that sits outside your college or university.
Take a look at our 'Outsourcing Email and Data Storage' briefing paper for a full discussion of the considerations before you make a decision: www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/publications/bpoutsourcinglongv1.pdf
Our organisation is about to go through a number of changes designed to improve
our records management. But we'd like to set up a process now that will help us
evaluate how effective these are in reducing costs. How can JISC help?
Have you seen the impact calculator? It's a downloadable tool which will help you
capture and measure data on the performance of your systems before and after the
change and the cost of implementing the new system – as well as, crucially,
providing an accurate calculation of the measurable benefits, financial and otherwise.
www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/records-management/measuring-impact/impact-calculator
www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/records-management/measuring-impact/impact-calculator
We're going through a procurement process set up some time ago but priorities have
changed and we now need to put value for money at the top of our agenda. Where can
I go for advice?
We have two resources to help you. Firstly Procureweb, a JISC Advance service, will
guide you through the legal, financial, cultural and technical issues involved in
all stages of the procurement process. We've estimated that this service saves universities
and colleges £1.5m a year. Why not arrange a meeting with them to discuss
how they can help your institution by phoning 029 2087 0333 or going to their website:
www.procureweb.ac.uk
The Higher Education Library – Procurement (HELP) also provides information on procurement strategy, policy and procedures including best procurement practice, practical tendering support and guidance on legal issues: www.procureweb.ac.uk/services/h-e-l-p
The Higher Education Library – Procurement (HELP) also provides information on procurement strategy, policy and procedures including best procurement practice, practical tendering support and guidance on legal issues: www.procureweb.ac.uk/services/h-e-l-p
I don't have a software budget – how can I find out if there is an open source application
I could use?
All major hosting providers provide categorisation and searching facilities. For
example, you can search Google Code http://code.google.com/hosting
where the creators themselves write the labels to categorise their projects thereby
making them easier to find. SourceForge allows you to drill down through different
categories depending on what type of software you are searching for http://sourceforge.net/directory.
There are also aggregation sites like Ohloh www.ohloh.net, which allows you to search across lots of different repository websites. On the public project registry http://sourceforge.net/directory you can browse and search for projects, most of which are in the academic realm.
We have a one-stop shop for all the support you need around open source software through JISC OSS Watch
www.oss-watch.ac.uk/about/faq.xml
There are also aggregation sites like Ohloh www.ohloh.net, which allows you to search across lots of different repository websites. On the public project registry http://sourceforge.net/directory you can browse and search for projects, most of which are in the academic realm.
We have a one-stop shop for all the support you need around open source software through JISC OSS Watch
www.oss-watch.ac.uk/about/faq.xml
We recently digitised a library collection of rare manuscripts – but with
future funding uncertain there are concerns over where the revenue will come from
to fund its continued preservation and hopefully expansion in the future. What advice
would you have?
Your options are to find revenue from your institution's core funding, the original
funding source (eg. the funding council), online sales (eg. selling posters),
third party sales (eg. Amazon), third party licensing (eg. integrating it into an
existing collection), paid-for subscriptions, sponsorship and advertising. Using
more than one of these options as an income generator is a wise move to spread the
risk. A recent study
by the Blue Ribbon Task Force, an international initiative part-funded by JISC,
recommends that the resources to preserve collections should come from public–private
partnerships.
For support with the finer points of your decision making, you may like to look at JISC Digital Media's sustainability advice: www.jiscdigitalmedia.ac.uk/crossmedia/advice/sustainability-of-digital-collections/#st6
For support with the finer points of your decision making, you may like to look at JISC Digital Media's sustainability advice: www.jiscdigitalmedia.ac.uk/crossmedia/advice/sustainability-of-digital-collections/#st6
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Find out more about how to save costs in JISC’s briefing sheet.