JISC

This project has developed a fully functional prototype, based on the functional requirements for tools for creating ONIX-PL expressions of licences specified as part of the JISC PALS 2 Electronic Expression of Licensing Terms: Specifying publisher tools and library benefits project.

Executive Summary

We have called the ONIX-PL editing tool OPLE. OPLE allows both licensors and licensees to create ONIX-PL expressions of their licenses and to revise drafts in the negotiation process. The system is based on the use of a library of templates that can be used to create precise expressions of individual licenses. OPLE has been designed on a web architecture. Web browsers are used to provide a userfriendly graphical user interface and two views of the license expression are supported.

These are a form view for creating the license expression and a page view for review, comparison with original licenses and printout. It had already been agreed that the drafting system would be implemented on a popular web-based client-server technology platform in order to keep the requirement for bespoke software development to a minimum and make it easy to find the resources for developing and maintaining the bespoke software components. The system employs standard web browser clients to provide user interfaces to the system. This will make it relatively easy to roll out access to the system to any number of users, thereby supporting adoption of the system by both smaller and larger organisations.

The decision to base OPLE on free/open source software (FOSS) components has resulted in some delays and initial performance problems as the software on which OPLE is based was still undergoing frequent revision. However, the decision was inevitable given the cost restraints and the need to make the software freely available, and the initial problems were eventually overcome. A more detailed account of the technical development issues is appended as Appendix 2.

The following are two typical user scenarios. Others will no doubt be identified in the light of experience. In the first, the user will interact with the ONIX-PL annotated schema that is pre-installed in OPLE to generate one or more templates based on their own boilerplate licences, from which they or other colleagues can derive specific licence expressions (i.e. expressions of individual licence agreements with particular customers or suppliers). This scenario requires some understanding of ONIX-PL in order to produce the initial template, and may require expert assistance at that stage; but once a template has been set up, the derivation of individual licence expressions should be straightforward.

In the second scenario, the user would select a generic licence template, probably based on a model licence, from the ONIX for Licensing Terms section of the EDItEUR website, and use this as a much simpler starting point to create their own template, which would then be used to derive specific licence expressions in the same way as in the first scenario. In addition to the JISC licences, it is EDItEUR's intention to produce further generic templates based on model licences. The first users of OPLE are JISC Collections who have recently installed the system on their server and will be using it to map all their publisher licences to ONIX-PL. Although the major international library systems vendors producing ERM (Electronic Resource management) systems have undertaken to implement ONIX-PL, none have yet done so. A tender for an ERM system issued by JISC Collection includes this requirement and there are indications that this is speeding up implementation by library systems vendors.

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