JISC

As the number of the digital resources in library collections grows, libraries have increasing difficulty complying with the widely differing licence terms applied to resources by their creators and publishers. This project analysed the Wiley InterScience Enhanced Access Licence for Academic Users (selected for its range of usage terms and widespread implementation) and developed an equivalent ONIX Publisher License representation in the form of an XML message together with definitions of all the terms and appropriate tables of values.

Executive summary

The analysis and mapping of this licence has helped to create a critical mass of terms The ability to express widely differing licence terms in a simple form and communicate them to users has become a pressing need. A report by Intrallect for JISC included, amongst others, the following requirements from libraries:

• Rights should be expressed in machine readable form
• Whenever a resource is described its rights should also described
• Users should be able to see the rights information associated with a resource

Building on the work of the Digital Libraries Federation's Electronic Resource Management Initiative (ERMI) and the joint EDItEUR / NISO work on ONIX for Serials, an ONIX Publisher License format is being developed to provide that functionality through a standard XML message for the communication of licensing terms for electronic resources from a publisher to a user institution (e.g. an academic institution or consortium), either directly or through a subscription agent. The format will allow a publisher licence to be expressed electronically as a standard XML document that can be loaded into an electronic resources management system maintained by the receiving institution. The ONIX Publisher License is seen as the first step towards a comprehensive family of ONIX formats, ONIX for Licensing Terms, based on a single data dictionary.

This project’s objectives were to analyse the Wiley InterScience Enhanced Access Licence for Academic Users, selected for its range of usage terms and widespread implementation, and develop an equivalent ONIX Publisher License representation in the form of an XML message together with definitions of all the terms and appropriate tables of values. The project will also deliver an extended version of the currently limited ONIX for Licensing Terms data dictionary.

As part of the process, publisher and library users met to discuss and agree the precise semantic meaning of the terms of the licence and to ensure that the electronic version of the licensing terms correctly reflects the intention of the written licence. This process also resulted in substantial enhancements to the ONIX Publisher License format.

The analysis of the Wiley licence and discussion in the semantic workshop exposed some lack of clarity and minor inconsistency in the licence. It was recognised that this will probably be the case for most licences, and that the process of expressing legal language in actionable XML terms is unforgiving in exposing such flaws. It was also concluded that this process would in itself be of considerable value to both parties in an agreement.

The work on expressing the licence in XML format also led to substantial discussion on what elements should be included in a structured and machine-actionable form within the ONIX licence expression; what should be included as an unstructured citation of licence text (since it would not be actionable in a machine system); and what could be more usefully specified by reference to a separate document. It was agreed, for example, that since a licence will typically cover a package of journal titles that may change during the life of the licence, the details of the publications covered would be best expressed by reference to a separate source such as an ONIX for Serials SOH (Serials Online Holdings) file.

A similar discussion took place on whether payment details should be included in a structured form within the ONIX licence expression or specified entirely by reference to a separate document. The conclusion in this case was that, while the ONIX Publisher License format should in principle allow any fee calculation and payment rules that were part of the contract to be expressed in a structured way, it would not be practical to do so for the Wiley Licence as part of the present project. In any event, a licence expression should not be seen as fulfilling the functions of delivering a price quotation, for which the ONIX for Serials SPS (Serial Products and Subscriptions) format was an appropriate carrier.

Other terms that were integral to a licence but were not machine-actionable could be included in the XML expression by citing the relevant text and associating it with a controlled 'term type' value from the data dictionary. This would allow a library’s electronic resource management system to hold a 'knowledge base' of current licences that would be searchable by term type to assist with the task of licence administration.

Following the workshop, BIC and Rightscom consultants carried out the detailed mapping of the Wiley licence and, as a by-product of that work, developed an extended version of the ONIX for Licensing Terms data dictionary

The analysis and mapping of this licence, in addition to providing a valuable exemplar, has helped to create a critical mass of terms. While the ONIX for Licensing Terms data dictionary will certainly require further development, this project has created a solid foundation for the next stage of defining the tools that will be needed to enable publishers to generate ONIX Publisher License messages, and to manage the processes by which new terms can be registered for inclusion in the dictionary.

Report available electronically only. Download the full report below.