David Martin Digital Policy Management: JISC/BL Workshop 24 April 2006

1. ONIX for Licensing Terms David Martin Digital Policy Management: JISC/BL Workshop 24 April 2006

2. ONIX for Licensing Terms • What is ONIX? • Background to ONIX for Licensing Terms • ONIX Publisher License format • JISC projects • Progress and prospects

3. ONIX • A family of XML formats for communicating rich metadata about books, serials and other published media, using common data elements, “composites”, and code lists • XML Schemas, DTDs and user documentation • Developed and maintained by EDItEUR through a growing number of partnerships with other organisations

4. Existing ONIX formats • ONIX for Books: now adopted in at least a dozen countries • First release in 2000: Release 3.0 in 2007 • ONIX for Serials (with NISO): three application families • Serial Online Holdings (SOH): Version 1.0 • Serial Products & Subscriptions (SPS) and Serial Release Notifications (SRN): pilot Version 0.9 • ONIX for DOI registration: mEDRA and Nielsen BookData

5. Licensing terms – the problem • Growth of digital collections in libraries • Need to automate management of digital resources • Need to relate licenses to institutional policies • Variation in licensing terms • Complexity of license documentation • Uncertainty at the point of use • How could publishers and vendors help?

6. Deliver license terms digitally • Express license terms in machine-readable form • Communicate electronically from vendor to subscriber • Enable license terms to be loaded directly into an ERMS • But this needs a standard...

7. Background • DLF ERMI project (phase 1) • Set out to describe and define architectures needed to manage collections of licensed digital resources • Problem definition/road map • Functional requirements • Workflow and entity relationship diagrams • Data element dictionary (inc licensing terms) • ERMS data structure

8. EDItEUR review of ERMI • ERMI Phase 1 as a basis for a standard for license terms expression; commissioned from Rightscom • ERMI 1 was a valuable starting point, but further development required • Terms dictionary would need a more rigorous (onto)logical structure • Proposed an <indecs>-based rights model: licenses are about events (permitted, prohibited, required, etc)

9. ONIX for Licensing Terms • Proof of concept project in 2005, supported by the Publishers Licensing Society and JISC • Work-in-progress drafts published on the EDItEUR website • Two JISC projects under way in 2005/2006 • International License Expression Working Group (LEWG) sponsored by NISO, DLF, PLS and EDItEUR, to provide input to ONIX development and to ensure liaison with ERMI 2

10. ONIX Publisher License message • The first member of what will become a family of ONIX Licensing Terms formats, using the same underlying structures • An XML message format that can deliver a structured expression of a publisher’s license for the use of (digital) resources, from publisher to agent to subscribing institution (or consortium) • A specification, an XML schema, and a formal dictionary of controlled values

11. Structured? • Those parts of the written license that may be actionable in an ERMS need to be delivered in a fully machine-interpretable form • Those parts of the license that are not actionable can be quoted within the XML expression and categorised in a controlled way, so that the subscribing institution can create a “knowledge base” of its licenses that can be searched consistently

12. Actionable? • Not just terms specifying permitted and prohibited usages and related conditions, though these are essential; but also, for example... • Terms specifying notice periods and permitted dates for changes – to support a diary system • Terms specifying bases of fee calculation in successive license years – to support budgeting and checking suppliers’ invoices

13. The objective... • Allow a publisher’s license to be loaded automatically into an institution’s ERMS • Enable the institution to map license terms against its own resource management policies and identify compatibilities and incompatibilities • Make it easier to inform users • An essential part of making it easier for libraries to manage complex electronic resources – but only a part.

14. JISC projects, 2005-2006 • Negotiation and mapping of a complete publisher license - BIC, John Wiley and Cranfield University • Definition of tools and services to help publishers produce ONIX-PL message – BIC, ALPSP, Loughborough University • Through these projects, we are extending and refining the draft format, and setting up an initial dictionary

15. Progress to date • The first JISC project is close to completion • ONIX-PL format specification essentially finished, though not yet published • Accompanied by a first release of elements of the ONIX Licensing Terms Dictionary • Complete expression of the Wiley EAL Academic License (except for fee calculation elements)

16. Components of the message • Message header: from, to, date, etc • Preamble: license identification, parties, dates, signatories, etc • Definitions • Structured terms • Term citations

17. Definitions • Agents: persons and organizations referred to in the license • Resources: licensed resources may be defined in a document separate from the license expression, and that could itself be an ONIX file; but we also need to define resources that are derived from usage, eg permitted extracts • Services, Dates/Times, Periods, Places, Events, States, Usages • Documents referred to from the license expression

18. Structured terms • Supply terms: terms relating to the supply of or access to licensed materials • Usage terms: terms related to permitted or prohibited usage • Payment terms: terms related to fee calculation rules and payment rules • Others may be added if found necessary

19. Term citations • Terms handled wholly by citation under a controlled category header; eg assignment; force majeure; warranties • Terms handled substantially by citation, but with some structured elements; eg termination clauses, with structured information about date limits and notice periods; or rights to continued access after termination, with structured information about resources to which such rights apply

20. The importance of the dictionary • A controlled set of values and definitions that licensors can tap into and use “as is”, or take as a basis for their own variant if necessary • But there are grounds for optimism that different wording in different licenses may rather often map acceptably into the same expression in XML

21. What are we learning? • It all looks and sounds complex • It IS complex, but not as complex as it looks • Mapping to XML forces clarification of what the license says, but not necessarily greater specificity – deliberate generality is OK • As well as the license expression standard, we will need high-level tools for licensors to work with in order to create ONIX-PL expressions • We will need ERMS that can input the messages and map them against institutional policies

22. Next steps • The second JISC project will profile the kind of tools that are needed for publishers • Experience with the work to date is already giving us ideas on how they might look • Development, however, will be a significant effort • We need to, and have already started to, engage the ERMS developers on the receiving end • Probably two or more years’ work ahead?

23. More information • EDItEUR: www.editeur.org • ERMI 1 report: www.diglib.org/pubs/dlfermi0408/ David Martin david@polecat.dircon.co.uk