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Economics of Information Supply – is free information good enough?
Tom Roper
Head of Learning Resources, South Thames College
Tom Roper, Break-out session B
Mimi & Eunice http://mimiandeunice.com/
copyleft Nina Paley
Tom Roper, Break-out session B
A short introduction to further education
Tom Roper, Break-out session B
Colleges
352 Colleges in England
22 Colleges and 2 FE institutions in Wales
43 Colleges in Scotland
6 Colleges in Northern Ireland
79.7% of 16-18 year-olds in education and training
Tom Roper, Break-out session B
Colleges in England
229 General Further Education Colleges (GFE)
93 Sixth Form Colleges (SFC)
16 land-based Colleges (AHC)
4 art, design and performing arts Colleges (ADPAC)
10 special designated Colleges (SD)
Tom Roper, Break-out session B
Meat One and Plasterers Two
FE as I knew it circa 1971: CCAT
– VIth form college
– Adult education
– Vocational education
Tom Roper, Break-out session B
FE today
Diverse range of subjects, modes of study, funding
All the levels: from E to 7 (8=doctoral degrees)
But
– Little cooperation
– Little interoperability
– Little comparison
– Low horizons
Tom Roper, Break-out session B
HE in FE…or not
Open access
Scholarly communication
Institutional repositories
Falling visitor numbers
Shared services
Tom Roper, Break-out session B
HE in FE
11% of higher education is delivered in FE colleges
Tom Roper, Break-out session B
Source: Association of
Colleges
HE in FE
Licensing: when can FE college users use resources licensed by HEI?
Tom Roper, Break-out session B
South Thames College
Rapid expansion of e-content
Link librarians
STCLive/Sharepoint/Catalogue
Budget of £600,000
Merger
Restructuring
– New e-resources co-ordinator post
– Apprentices
– 30 staff (mostly part-time)
New flagship building
Tom Roper, Break-out session B
What is free?
Arxiv, PubMed
Free at point of use…
– Institution pays or…
– Bill paid outside the institution
Licensed and unlicensed
Tom Roper, Break-out session B
Expanding e-content
2008
– Infotrac
– Britannica
– Spellzone
– Authentik
2010
– 69 e-collections of one sort or another, 17 on paid subscription
– E-books for FE
Tom Roper, Break-out session B
Types of free e-resource
JISC Collections material
– Rich, varied but..
Limited relevance to FE curriculum
Low levels of use, even of some obviously relevant tools
E-books for FE
Tom Roper, Break-out session B
Types of free e-resource
Hairdressing training
Archival material
JORUM
Providers include:– British Library
– EDINA
– JSTOR
– Oxford University Press
– Proquest
Tom Roper, Break-out session B
Deploying free resources
Adding value:
– Describing and making discoverable
– Promoting
– Instructing
Future of JISC funding
Does pump-priming work?
Tom Roper, Break-out session B
Low levels of use, in spite of our best efforts
Tom Roper, Break-out session B
What’s coming?
Major cuts in funding
– More mergers
– Adult provision to be cut by £200 million
– Average cut of 16%...some as much of 25%
Bonfire of quangos
The return of the pay wall
Tom Roper, Break-out session B
Sustainability
What happens when licences come up for renewal?
Tom Roper, Break-out session B
What next?
The positives
– E-books
– HE in FE: leadership
Cf M25/ Kingston University
– HE can learn from FE too
Massification
Doing more with less
Tom Roper, Break-out session B
The curious incident of the FE consortia
Tom Roper, Break-out session B
The learner voice
‘Going to go library, innit’
Tom Roper, Break-out session B
