This document provides guidance to help determine whether students should be granted access to online resources licensed by an educational institution. It presents a decision tool with 9 questions addressing factors like whether the institution reports the students, receives fees for them, provides their education, and has overall responsibility. If most questions are answered "yes", the students can likely be treated as the institution's own. The document also outlines key licence restrictions and options to extend access through partnerships.

1. Student Access
Decision Maker
Find out which students should be allowed to access
online resources.
www.eduserv.org.uk

2. When a student wants access to an online resource licensed by your institution
there are three possibilities:
1. they are your student(s) so you can allow access.
2. they are the student(s) of one of your partners so you can allow access if
you have a standard licence extension.
3. the student's association with your institution is too informal or remote to
justify access even if a licence extension has been purchased.
It's not always easy to work out if a student is technically 'yours'.
This tool aims to help you reach a decision.
We're assuming the standard Chest licence applies to all the affected online
resources. However, the guidelines will apply in varying degrees to resources
licensed on different terms.
If you do use the Decision Maker for online resources licensed under different
terms then do take some care interpreting the licence terms and conditions

3. Q1: Will your institution include the student(s) in its reports to regulatory
bodies?
For HE institutions “reports to regulatory bodies” means the HESA
Student Record and Staff Collection.
For FE institutions it means;
• in England, the Individualised Learner Records (ILR) reported to the
Information Authority and used by the SFA
• in Scotland, the Further Education Statistics (FES) reported to the
Scottish Funding Council Knowledge Management Group (SFC)
• in Wales, the Lifelong Learning Wales Record (LLWR) reported to the
Welsh Assembly Department for Education and Skills
• in Northern Ireland the Further Education Statistical Record (FESR)
reported to the Department for Employment and Learning.

4. Interpreting Q1:
It would seem to be a reasonable starting point that if the authorities
consider someone to be your student then publishers should too.

5. Q2: Does your institution receive fees or funding for the
student(s) either from the student(s), or from funding authorities
or from another educational institution?

6. Interpreting Q2:
If your institution gets funding or payment for this student from
another institution, then you should record them as your own student
even if you do not award their qualification.
You need to be sure that the funding or payment relates to the
student and not to educational services or products that you are
supplying to another institution. For example, if you get paid for
designing and supplying certain course materials to another
institution, the students at that other institution cannot be treated as
your own. Such students may be allowed to access your licensed
resources if you have an extension to the standard Chest licence.
Some care may be needed if the funding or payment comes from a
private company as this might imply commercial usage which is
prohibited by the standard Chest licence.

7. Q3: Would you include the student(s) in the user numbers or
banding that determines the fees to be paid for your online
resources?

8. Interpreting Q3
If you consider that you‟ve paid for this type of student or this group
of students then, ignoring other considerations, this is a reasonable
argument for allowing them access.
But if the fee you paid wasn‟t intended to cover the student(s), then
you should be thinking in terms of not granting them access – but
you can take other factors into account before arriving at a final
decision.

9. Q4: Will the student(s) receive the majority of their education
or research supervision from personnel engaged by your
institution?

10. Interpreting Q4:
If your people will teach or supervise the students, then in isolation,
this suggests they can be classified as your students.
The people teaching or instructing the student don‟t need to be your
employees, they could be engaged under any sort of contractual
arrangement. This recognises the many variations in today‟s
marketplace.
A „yes‟ answer to this question is not conclusive on its own but
contributes to a positive decision when other answers are taken into
account.

11. Q5: Will your institution provide most of the online resources
that the student(s) will use?

12. Interpreting Q5:
Again the answer to this question can‟t be conclusive on its own
because of the mobility of students these days and the accessibility
of resources.
However, taken along with other positive answers, a „yes‟ answer
here helps build the case that for licensing purposes the student can
be treated as your own.

13. Q6: Are you happy that the online resources that the
student(s) must access aren’t part of a resource sharing
arrangement or collaboration between your institution and
another educational institution or party?

14. Interpreting Q6:
This question is driving at whether the resources are properly
licensed to your institution. If your institution is the sole licensee, then
clearly there isn‟t a problem granting access to your own students.
But you may have concerns where, for example, students from other
institutions use the resources. If the resources are in some way
jointly licensed with a partner or partners of your institution, then care
will be needed because access is likely to be limited to specific
students.
If resources are actually licensed by one of your partners then they
need a licence extension in order to be able to grant access to your
students.

15. Q7: Will the student(s) be entitled to use the same range of
facilities and systems offered to all your institution’s
students?

16. Interpreting Q7:
Here we‟re not just talking about library resources but all sorts of
facilities and systems. For example, will this type of student or this
group of students have access to all the same ICT systems, sports
facilities, etc. as all other students? If these students will have more
limited rights than others, or they‟ll be treated in some other way
which distinguishes them, they probably can‟t be treated as your
students without taking other factors into account.

17. Q8: Are you happy that no other educational institution or party
would consider the student(s) to be theirs rather yours?

18. Interpreting Q8:
This question looks at what the parties themselves feel. It‟s a valid
subjective test (called „mutuality of intent‟) that‟s used in many
different legal situations, where the views of the affected parties
helps determine the type of legal relationship that exists.
Where there are no conflicting claims over the „ownership‟ of a
student, this helps to arrive at a decision to grant access to your
online resources.
More generally this question is aimed at provoking thought about the
types of partnerships that your institution has and the nature of the
relationships created between the various students and your
institution. It‟s useful to consider what the student might think – does
he consider himself to be one of your students or does he more
closely associate himself with another institution?

19. Q9: Will your institution have overall responsibility for the
education and conduct of the student(s)? For example if
there’s a serious instance of misconduct, can your institution
take disciplinary action directly without reference to any other
party?

20. Interpreting Q9:
Again we‟re looking at the broader picture. It doesn‟t just relate to
misuse of online resources.
If your institution has authority and responsibility for the student‟s
academic progression, personal development, welfare and wellbeing,
it‟s indicative of the type of relationship you‟d expect an institution to
have only with its own students.
In a serious disciplinary situation your institution could deal with its
own students as it deems fit but this would contrast with a similar
situation where your institution would feel obliged to defer to or
consult with another institution or party before taking action.
Again the „direction and control‟ test is used in many situations to
help determine the nature of the legal relationship that exists.

21. Your results
Whether you should treat students as your own depends on a range
of factors.
You‟ll have noticed that not all questions have the same significance
but if you have answered „yes‟ to most questions, it‟s likely that your
licence allows the student or group of students to access your online
resources.
However you should look at the whole picture to see if on balance it‟s
reasonable to treat the students as your own.
If you have any doubts you should refer to your legal department or
contact the Chest Team at Eduserv.

22. Essential licence conditions
Even if you decide that a student can access your licensed online
resources, terms and conditions apply to the use that the student
can make of the resources.
Some of the key restrictions that you‟ll find in most licences, including
the standard Chest licence, are:
• resources can only be used for educational purposes.
• resources can‟t be used for commercial gain.
• limitations apply to the extent to which material can be copied or
incorporated into other works.
• resources can‟t be sold, leased or sublicensed .

23. Chest Licence Extensions
If the Student Access Decision Maker suggests that a group of
students would not be allowed access to your online resources under
normal licence terms, access might be allowed if you buy a Chest
licence extension.
Extension for Educational Purposes
In essence this allows the students and staff of your partners to use
your online licensed resources for educational activities that involve
your institution and the partner.
Extension for Commercial Projects
This allows access to incubator companies or knowledge transfer
partnerships that your institution is involved with.