About the new Standard Licence

Earlier this year we completed a review of our Standard Chest Licence for Online Resources. We consulted members of the academic community and suppliers. As a result of the review we are introducing a new licence. Each party’s rights and obligations are more explicitly set out and it is shorter and clearer than the previous version. We have not reduced your rights as a Licensee nor increased your obligations under this new licence.

The new definition of ‘Authorised user’ is less restrictive and covers any student who is undertaking research or a course of study at home or abroad, part or full time, distance learners, visiting students and researchers, all staff whether they are employed by the institution or not and including administrators and managers, walk-in users. In all cases the resource can still only be used for educational purposes. These broader definitions mean that we should not need to keep defining additional types of authorised user.

In addition, we are introducing a couple of optional extensions which will allow you to offer access to people who need to use a licensed resource but who usually fall outside your institution’s core population. New variations of partnerships/collaborations between organisations keep coming up and also the rapid emergence of new commercial institutions means that we are keeping our defintions under review.

• Option for Extended Educational Use – this is intended to accommodate students and the staff instructing them who are not members of the licensed institution. This extension will cost a little more but it means that secure access could be given to, for example, users in partner colleges in UK or overseas or students on franchised or validated courses. This extension allows the licensed institution the option to charge the other party for use of the resource.
  
• Licence Extension for Commercial Projects – this can be purchased in addition to the Option for Extended Educational Use and means that a licensee can use the resource in projects that are deemed ‘commercial’, for example; where they receive payment from third parties, for non-academic research, consultancy services or where they have the majority or controlling interest in a trading company, partnership, joint venture or other collaborations.

The new Standard Licence and the extensions are being introduced gradually as agreements are renewed or new ones come along. You can read or download the new Standard Licence from the website. Individual agreements on the website have links to the appropriate licence.

The first major renewals which offer the new licence and extensions are the ProQuest Agreements.

If you are not sure if you need to purchase a licence extension for a particular group of students or staff then please contact Eduserv Help with details.