1. JISC Collections banding review
Or: Zen and the art of banding maintenance
Hugh Look (Banding Manager, JISC Collections)
JISC Collections

2. Because that William Gibson quote is so, like, yesterday
Miss Brunner: “You look ahead.”
Jerry Cornelius: “I look around. Ahead is here already.”
– Michael Moorcock: The Final Programme (Book 1 of the Cornelius
Quartet)
JISC Collections

3. What is the JISC Collections banding scheme?
 Basis for all subscription fees for the online resources in JISC
Collections Catalogue
– For NESLi2 agreements, bands have been used as part of the basis
for establishing fees for Big Deal
 All JISC Collections institutional members in UK ranked into one of
10 bands
– Further and Higher Education institutions
– Specialist Colleges
– Separate schemes for other groups such as schools or museums
 BANDING IS NOT THE SAME AS PRICING
JISC Collections

4. Why do we need to review the banding?
 Banding is based on public sector finance for HEIs
 The shape of funding is changing dramatically
– The value of block grant funding is being reduced, especially in
teaching
– Student fees are becoming much more important
– Research funding comes from more diverse sources
 Institutions are becoming more complex
– Multi-site joint ventures
– Overseas campuses
 The relative incomes of institutions will change
 Different elements of their income will become more important
 Would need to update data even if using same metrics
JISC Collections

5. Our options
 Do nothing
 Update the data using the same basis for the bands
 Introduce a new scheme
JISC Collections

6. Our options
 Do nothing
– Bands will become increasingly detached from reality
– Inequities will become more prevalent
– We will have to kludge all the time
 Update the data using the same basis for the bands
– Bands will become increasingly detached from reality
– Inequities will become more prevalent
 Introduce a new scheme
– Back in touch with reality
– Complicated (and possibly painful) transition
– We can create a scheme that is much more future-proof
JISC Collections

7. Why now?
 Impact of increased student fees and other changes will
not be clear for some time
 Reduce uncertainty
 Avoid panic!
 Manage the transition, which will be (reprise)
– Complex
– Possibly painful
 Here comes the Zen bit…
JISC Collections

8. JISC Collections

9. The main risk
JISC Collections

10. The main risk
 Designing a scheme to meet objections to other schemes
 Or to avoid the pain of transition
– A danger with any consultative process
JISC Collections

11. How does the scheme work at the moment?
 Predicated on just three elements
– HEFCE/HEFCW/SFC/DELNI recurrent grant for teaching (―T
funding‖)
– HEFCE/HEFCW/SFC/DELNI recurrent grant for research (―QR
research funding‖)
– Research Council funding
 Data is transparent
– Available from HESA
 We do not use now, nor have we ever used, FTE as a basis for
banding!
JISC Collections

12. What we will need to model
 More complex situations
 Different types of revenue
– More diverse research revenues
– Student fees
 Avoiding excessive volatility
JISC Collections

13. What we need to retain or add in a new scheme
 Transparency
 Practicality
 Adaptability to changing circumstances
– Changing sources of revenue
– Changes to research funding as well as teaching
– Mergers of large HEIs
JISC Collections

14. Proposed solution
 Include all relevant income
– (UK average under old model)
– Remaining block grant funding for teaching & research (34%)
– All student fee income (31%)
• Including from overseas campuses
– Research council income (6%)
– Industry funding—research and consultancy (2%)
– Funding from charities (2%)
– Other public sector income—NHS etc (3%)
– EU funding (1%)
– These percentages vary widely depending on type of HEI
JISC Collections

15. Excluded income
 Excludes a few categories that do not add to use of
information resources
– Endowment income
– Income from activities such as letting rooms in halls of residence
– Income from IP licensing
– Deferred capital grants
JISC Collections

16. I’m sure you didn’t, but just in case you drifted off for a
moment earlier on…
 BANDING IS NOT THE SAME AS PRICING
 Publishers make their own commercial decisions as to how to
price each band
– They frequently combine bands
– They set different ratios between bands
• Highest:lowest ranges from 2:1 to 10:1
 When we implement a major review of bands, we would expect to
see publishers reconsider their pricing to ensure that their
business remains sustainable
 This is the major issue for the transition
JISC Collections

17. The most conservative approach
 Refresh current model with new data
 Will drift further and further out of touch with both demand and
ability to pay
 Over 60 institutions would still change band
 Some would change by 2 bands
JISC Collections

18. The most radical
 Take into account all relevant income
 Reduce bands to 5 or 6
– Reduction in bands may not be that hard as is de facto position in many cases
JISC Collections

19. Implications
 Revisions to banding are a strategic issue, not commercial tactics
 The least disruptive model is a refresh of the current model with
new data
 Broad acceptance of all relevant income model in consultation so
far
 Any change to metrics create major shifts in banding
 Prices will need to be realigned
– Not the purpose of the review to reduce or increase the total paid by the sector
 Publishers will wish to carry out equally comprehensive review of
their prices
 This will form part of future negotiations with publishers
JISC Collections

20. Implications
 Whatever we do, we will need to bring in changes gradually
– Commercial adjustments need to follow
 Some HEIs will pay less
 Some will pay more
 Need time to plan for these changes
 We will make data available
JISC Collections

21. Planning the transition
 Further discussions with publishers needed before a plan can be
finalised
– Publishers will need to model new pricing
– We will need to model the impact of the new pricing
 We will make modelling data available to HEIs and to publishers for
their own estimating
 Estimate 3 to 4 years before new scheme fully operational
 Also under consideration: the “large HEI with very small demand
for a specialist resource” problem
– Some metrics for a possible solution being modelled
– But not yet tested
JISC Collections

22. I would like to hear your comments and suggestions. Send
them to:
Hugh Look
Banding manager, JISC Collections
hugh.look@jisc-collections.ac.uk
JISC Collections

23. I would like to hear your comments and suggestions. Send
them to:
Hugh Look
Banding manager, JISC Collections
hugh.look@jisc-collections.ac.uk
JISC Collections

24. Discussion
JISC Collections