This presentation was provided by Ralph Youngen of the American Chemical Society, during the NISO event "Community OwnedInfrastructure: Partnerships and Collaboration." The virtual conference was held on March 24, 2021.

1. Ralph Youngen
Sr. Director, Digital Strategy, American Chemical Society
Case Study
Community Infrastructure
for Streamlining Access to
Scholarly Resources
NISO Virtual Conference – Community Owned Infrastructure – March 24, 2021

2. Background
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3. Background
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• The library is not the starting point
• The campus is not the work location
• The proxy is not the answer
• The PC is not the device

4. Pervasive Problem
• Scholarly publishers had failed to keep pace with research expectations
stemming from:
• More widespread use of mobile devices
• More widespread consumption of scholarly content while off-campus
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In 2015 scholarly publishers were using IP
address recognition as the primary means of
authorizing access, rooted in the 1990s
assumption that researchers were using devices
physically plugged into a campus network.

5. The Response
• RA21’s Purpose: To a facilitate seamless user experience for accessing scholarly
content beyond IP address recognition, supporting network security and user privacy
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Community Initiative Sponsors

6. RA21
• Very broad community effort involving hundreds of individuals from more than
60 different organizations
• Scholarly Publishers • Software Providers
• Universities • Corporations
• Conducted multiple pilots for using federated
authentication instead of IP recognition for
accessing scholarly content
• Final output: NISO Recommended Practice,
published in June 2019
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7. Community-Owned Infrastructure
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8. Phases
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Plan Build Run
Clarifying the problem,
iterating on solutions
Prototyping
Building awareness
Part-time volunteers
• Paid facilitation helpful
Loose governance
No legal structure
In-kind donations
Staffing model
Governance model
Finances
Partnership agreement
Staffing model
Governance model
Finances
Legal structure
Sustainability model
Big
Decision

9. Timelines
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Plan Build Run
July 2019 – now
• SeamlessAccess beta
2016 – July 2019
• RA21
Feb. 2019 – June 2020
• Technical prototyping
• Public announcement
December 2019
• LLC formed June 2020
Nov. 2017 – Feb. 2019
• Sr. Exec. discussions
• Product Directors
workshops
• Built consensus on
potential solution

10. Staffing Model
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Program Management (PT)
Product Management (PT)
Outreach (PT)
Software Engineering (PT)
Program Management (PT)
Product Management (FT)
Outreach (PT)
Software Engineering (FT)
Business Development (PT)
Plan Build Run
Run
Build Run
Plan Build Run
Build Run
Build Run
Build Run
Run
Run

11. Governance Model
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Governance Committee
• Representatives from each
sponsoring organization
• Decision-making by consensus
• Terms of use
Operations Committee
Outreach Committee
Technical Steering Committee
Build Run
LLC Board
• Terms of use
Steering Committee
• Representatives from each
sponsoring organization
• Operational decision-making
by consensus
Outreach Committee
Product/Technical Group
Build Run

12. Legal Structure
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Loose agreements can work,
addressing:
• Contributions and ownership of
intellectual property
• Cost sharing
• Service contracts
Formal entity needed, addressing:
• Terms of Use
• Trademarks
• Finances
• Revenue collection
• Taxes (if applicable)
Build Run

13. Legal Structure
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Memorandum of Understanding
• Any party could choose to leave,
but any IP contributed remained
with the project
• No common funds or common
contracts
Build
Run
Interim agreement among the parties
• Established joint ownership of any
IP created
• Authorized one party to hold
funds and enter into contracts on
behalf of all parties
Build
Run
Dutch Stichting being pursued Delaware LLC established

14. Financial Model
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No central pool of funds
No overarching budget
Each party budgets and funds
its own resources
Central funding pool
Centralized contracts
Build Build
Funding pool and contracts transferred
to LLC, which maintains its budget
Run

15. Key Learnings
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• Don’t build until you’ve achieved strong consensus on the solution to be built
• SeamlessAccess: Years of community engagement, prototyping, etc. under RA21
• GetFTR: Commitment to original vision unwavering through several Sr. Exec. changes
• Don’t underestimate the value of Face-to-Face meetings/workshops
• Forces the attention of busy people with other “day jobs”
• Promotes rapid decision making
• Builds trust
• Don’t think you can get by without some dedicated staff
• Program management is essential to keep things moving
• Product management is essential to keep software development roadmap aligned with
community needs

16. Final Thought – Proliferation of “Not for Profits”
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Each entity must spend a portion of its
own resources on membership
recruitment to ensure sustainability of
the service.
Currently exploring how STM Solutions
can build upon the foundations
established by GetFTR and STM’s
participation in SeamlessAccess.

17. Ralph Youngen
Sr. Director, Digital Strategy, American Chemical Society
Questions: ryoungen@acs.org
Thank You!
NISO Virtual Conference – Community Owned Infrastructure – March 24, 2021