ONIX for Licensing Terms

Brian Green, EDItEUR

International umbrella body for book and serials sector standards development

Originally a European project - now international - members in 20 countries

Develops and maintains standards for product information (ONIX), EDI, RFID in Libraries, rights expression etc.

Manages ICEDIS and the International ISBN Agency

EDItEUR

What is ONIX?

A family of XML formats for communicating rich metadata about books, serials and other published media, using common data elements

XML Schemas, DTDs and user documentation

Developed and maintained by EDItEUR through a growing number of partnerships with other organisations

ONIX for Books

ONIX for Books adopted by book trades of Australia, Canada, US, UK, Germany, France, Korea, Netherlands, Italy , Norway, Spain and Finland

First release in 2000, Release 3 in 2007 A trade standard, but used by Library of

Congress, Deutsche Bibliothek and others for CIP metadata supplied by publishers and enhancing OPACS

RDA/ONIX discussions on common framework

ONIX for Serials

An EDItEUR – NISO collaboration through a Joint Working Party (JWP)

Being piloted as a series of messages to support exchanges of metadata between publishers, doc del, A&I services and libraries

A growing set of XML “building blocks” that can be combined in different ways to form messages for particular application needs

Identified the need to express usage rights

ONIX for Serials

Serials Online Holdings (SOH) a format for delivering details of the electronic

holdings to which the library has access, and to populate resolution servers

Serials Products and Subscriptions (SPS) (a) Communication of journal product catalogue

information through the supply chain (b) Communication of details of subscriptions

held by an individual library or a consortium

ONIX for Serials

Serials Release Notification (SRN) A journal issue and article level format to be used

for communicating details of printed or electronic content as it is released

Coverage A structure for XML holdings statements, print or

electronic

To be incorporated into the SOH and SPS formats

Licensing terms - the problem Growth of digital collections in libraries Need to automate electronic resource

management Variation in licence terms

What are library users permitted to do? Under what conditions? Which classes of users are permitted to do what?What exceptions are there to what they are permitted

to do?

How can publishers help libraries comply with licence terms?

What libraries say they want

Expression of rights rights expressed in machine readable form

Dissemination of rights ensuring that whenever a resource is described

its rights are also described Exposure of rights

user sees the rights information associated with a resource

Intrallect DRM report for JISC

…in other words Machine-readable license terms loadable into

ERM systems A standard mechanism for the communication of

unambiguous licensing information within the library supply chain

Compatible with other metadata standards i.e. XML - based using standard identifiers

an ONIX for Licensing Terms

Licence is expressed in XML (ONIX-PL)

Applicable “repertoire” is attached in ONIX format

Sent to libraries Electronic Resource Management (ERM) System as electronic message

ERM system looks after user authentication

ERM system links actionable terms (e.g. permitted and prohibited usages and related conditions) to relevant resources

User informed of usage terms when resource is accessed

How will it work?

DLF ERMI project

US Digital Libraries Federation’s Electronic Resource Management Initiative delivered Problem Definition/Road Map Functional Requirements & Workflow Diagram Data Element Dictionary (including licensing terms) Electronic Resources Management System Data

Structure XML Investigation

EDItEUR review of ERMI

ERMI is a valuable starting point for the development of such a communication standard but required further development

To meet requirements of extensibility and interoperability, licensing terms require organising into an (onto)logical structure

Proposed proof of concept exercise (jointly funded by JISC and PLS)

First JISC PALS project

Negotiation and mapping of publisher licence - BIC, John Wiley and Cranfield University ONIX Publications License (ONIX-PL) message

format specification published on EDItEUR website

First release of elements of the ONIX Licensing Terms Dictionary

Complete expression of the Wiley EAL Academic License

Second JISC PALS project

Specification of publisher tools and library benefits – BIC, ALPSP, Loughborough University Specification of drafting tools to facilitate mapping

of licenses to ONIX-PL format Evaluation of benefits of electronic expression of

licensing terms

NISO / DLF / EDItEUR / PLS License Expression Working Group (LEWG)

A wide cross-section of stakeholders to Guide and review the work of EDItEUR

consultants. Participate in pilot testing. Bring their expertise and awareness of licensing

and technology to keep the group's work relevant and complete.

Co-chaired by Nathan Robertson (DLF / ERMI) and Alicia Wise (PLS)

Follow-up extension projects

Development of an ONIX-PL license expression drafting system (JISC / PLS / EDItEUR) to allow both licensors and licensees to create

ONIX-PL expressions of their licenses and to revise drafts in the negotiation process

based on the use of a library of “public” templates which can be modified to create new “private templates” representing the user’s preferred form of license.

Map JISC model licences as templates

ONIX-PL License Editor

Web-based system architecture server-based license management browser-based user interface

Open Source development environment Apache Tomcat (Java Servlet platform) Orbeon Presentation Server

(XForms application server)

Planned features

Three user roles will be supported: template development license preparation license approval

Templates will be based upon expressions of model license terms maintained by EDItEUR, or upon existing templates

Individual license expressions will be forms that are generated automatically from templates, with gaps to be filled in by the user

Planned features

The system will support two “views” of a license expression: “Form” view, used for editing “Page” view, used for comparing a complete

license with a the paper-based original The next slide shows what part of a license

might look like in “form” view…

ONIX-PL License Editor

JISC workshops with librarians

In November JISC Collections facilitated workshops in London and Edinburgh with the user community to find out more … and to find out how JISC Collections can work towards meeting the needs of the community

Over 100 delegates attended the workshops, representing university libraries across the UK

The delegates identified the top five priorities regarding licences for online resources

Their top priority

JISC Collections to provide its community with Licence Agreements in a machine readable format – ready for Electronic Resource Management Systems

Related work in progress

Workshop on ONIX-PL implementation with DLF and Library management system vendors in Boston, 18/19 December

Work with International Federation of Reproduction Rights Organisations (IFRRO) on ONIX for Repertoire and other messages based on ONIX for Licensing Terms

Work with Automated Content Access Protocol (ACAP) project on expression of access and usage terms to search engines and others

Useful URLs

EDItEUR: www.editeur.org ERMI: www.diglib.org/pubs/dlf102/ ACAP: www.the-acap.org License Expression Working group

www.niso.org/committees/License_Expression/LicenseEx_comm.html