On 19 January we had a full day brainstorming potential scenarios to use with publishers in structured interviews, when exploring potential new business models fro incorporating published text book content into OER. We were very grateful to everyone who took part, especially Hugh Look, John Casey, Graham Isaacs, and John Robertson.

The PublisherOER team has agreed to the refined scenarios being shared, and it falls upon me to do that here. We include the whole list below, including those we rejected, together with a series of questions related to each scenario.

We would really appreciate your comments on our work. Are there things we have missed? Are there scenarios we haven't thought about? All input will be welcomed and acknowledged.

PublishOER scenarios canonical version draft 1 20120201

Author: Hugh Look

Date: 1 February 2012

This is a revised version of the scenarios circulated by SH before the meeting on 19 January. It takes into account the discussions at the 19 January meeting, and adds key issues that would be raised by each scenario. The scenarios are not mutually exclusive and some of them overlap; elements of some can be used in others.

Scenario 1

Some third-party materials are licensed by their publisher for inclusion in a designated OER[1].  Students can rate the materials using a simple scale of some kind. The presence of the materials raises awareness of the source texts and favourable ratings can add to the reputation of the source; books sales increase.

Questions to explore with this scenario:

• Would publishers be prepared to license for an Open ER at all?
• Would publishers be able to negotiate, or would they be inhibited by third-party rights issues?
• How much content and of what type and scale might they be prepared to license?
• What issues would they face in licensing such content?
• If it was not an Open ER, what license conditions would they want to use?
• Would they be willing to do this if the ER was limited to the institution creating it rather than an OER?
• Would the potential increase in sales of a work be an important factor in deciding?
• How would publisher react to a national licence that would allow this?

Scenario 2

A member of staff reproduces forty attributed images from a popular text by digitally copying them (under licence) into PowerPoint, annotating/animating them, and presenting them to students as a recorded lecture. Both the recording and the PowerPoint are made available as OER and opportunities to comment offered. The publisher links to the lecture from that part of the text in order to enhance the book (for subscribing individuals/organisations) and increase web traffic. A student uploads the PowerPoint to Facebook, from where other users download and reuse them.

Questions to explore with this scenario:

• Would publishers be willing to license as many as forty images for such a purpose?
• Would publishers be able to negotiate, or would they be inhibited by third-party rights issues?
• Would the reproduced quality of the images affect their decisions?
• Would the number of images requested have an impact on the decision?
• Are the Facebook downloads an important infringement that the publishers would want to pursue? Would the publisher issue a takedown notice?
• Would the publisher want some sort of metadata embedded in each image to help track authorised and unauthorised usage?
• How important would the fact that users can comment be to the publisher, and would the comments be useful?
• What would happen if other institutions wanted to do the same thing with some or all of the same images? How many times would the publisher be willing to do this and how many links would it be willing to embed in the work?
• What effort would the publisher be prepared to go to to link back to the lecture from its own book?
• How would the lecturers react, especially to the idea of comments made by students?

Scenario 3

Federated access to texts and journals (passing the students' institution as an attribute) allows publishers to see which institutions have accessed what materials. The first (say) 1GB downloaded or 10,000 accesses are free; after which payment is recovered from the institution at which the student is studying. Automated invoicing allows the institution to pass the fee on (or not).

This scenario will not be included as i) it does not have an Open element and ii) the pricing model was rejected as it will leave libraries very vulnerable to predictable cost over-runs.

Scenario 4a

This scenario has been divided into two. The original, now 4a, only has a small Open component.

Sections or chapters of popular textbooks are made available in iTunesU or NewsStand, in appropriate formats (video, audio, PDF, App etc.)  at a fraction of the physical book price. A teacher creates an OER that links to the specific chapter that students can access in the library or download, or the student could download the whole book from iTunesU. (This scenario mainly tests the use of mass-market distribution channels in an OER context).

Questions to explore with this scenario:

• Would publishers be able to negotiate, or would they be inhibited by third-party rights issues?
• What proportion of the total work would the extracts be?
• How would they be priced?
• How much would students be willing to pay?
• How would the extracts be chosen?
• Do they think the extracts would lead to a loss of sales rather than a gain?
• Do publishers think that additional sales of the full work would justify the effort involved in creating and managing the process and the margins they might pay to the distribution channel?
• Which distribution channel would be used, and how would it be chosen?

Scenario 4b

This variant emerged during discussion of the original Scenario 4.

Sections or chapters of popular textbooks are made available in iTunesU or NewsStand, in appropriate formats (video, audio, PDF, App etc.) free of charge under an open licence. These contain links to the rest of the textbook, which is available on standard terms. A teacher recommends a specific chapter that students can access in the library or download, or the student could download the whole book from iTunesU. The sections or chapters may be included in other OERs.

Questions to explore with this scenario:

• Would publishers be able to negotiate, or would they be inhibited by third-party rights issues?
• What proportion of the total work would the extracts be?
• How would the extracts be chosen?
• How would the links be embedded and maintained?
• Would publishers be willing to make these extracts fully open (rather than just free of charge?)
• Do publishers think that additional sales of the full work would justify the effort involved in creating and managing the extracts?
• Do they think the extracts would lead to a loss of sales rather than a gain?
• How would the effect  on publishers’ sales be measured?

Scenario 5

OER of mixed origin (mashed up third party materials, perhaps licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Only) have embedded links indicating how to buy the original sources; and/or agreement is reached whereby materials from publishers are mashed up in new ways to create new ‘published works’ that publishers can charge for.

Questions to explore with this scenario:

• Would publishers be able to use such mash-ups, or would they be inhibited by third-party rights issues?
• How would the OER be developed, and by whom?
• How stable would the OER be?
• How would changes to the resources be managed?
• How would publishers be sure that resources they used were of sufficient quality?
• How would users be sure that the content was still valid?
• Would publishers add their own, conventionally-licensed content?
• Would authors of the original content expect a royalty if the end product was sold commercially?
• Could this model result in a reduction in OER content?

Scenario 6

The web traffic for published texts that have been annotated by teachers and students generates enough ‘eyeballs’ through the comments to be attractive to advertisers. Commenters agree that their comments are subject to a form of licence that allows commercial use. Publishers can charge third party advertisers differentially for popular options.

Questions to explore with this scenario:

• Would publishers want to host the comments?
• Would the authors of comments still hold copyright, or would they transfer it to the publisher?
• Would textbook and ER publishers have the machinery and the skills to deal with an advertising-related revenue stream?
• Will users accept advertising as part of their experience with OERs?
• Would it be acceptable under the JANET terms of use?

Scenario 7

Proprietary ePub3 texts[1], playable on the iPad and (after conversion) Kindle, can be made highly interactive using OERs licensed under CC, including video, slide shows, enhanced typography and embedded access to the Internet, by which linking to OER materials and Dynamic Learning Maps-based rating and linking engines can be achieved.

The main points of this scenario are already included in other scenarios, Scenario 5 in particular.

Scenario 8

Online book licensing is made more granular to allow for more flexible use, including inclusion in OER, providing attribution including a link to the source is available. Users of the OER would be directed to commercially published content to supplement the OER content.

Questions to explore with this scenario:

•  Would publishers be able to negotiate, or would they be inhibited by third-party rights issues?
• Would publishers be willing to make these extracts fully open (rather than just free of charge?)
• Do publishers think that additional sales of the full work would justify the effort involved in creating and managing the licensing applicable to different parts of the content?
• Who would create the links?
• How would the links be maintained to ensure they linked to relevant current content?
• How granular would the licences need to be?
• Do they think the extracts would lead to a loss of sales rather than a gain?
• How would the effect  on publishers’ sales be measured?

Scenario 9

Embed codes are used to allow the use of embedded content within an OER, allowing it to play within the main page (as YouTube videos can be embedded in other content). Publishers would control the content sent to the embedding page. The embedded content could be made available a limited number of times to each institution (e.g. 250 views per term).

• Would publishers be able to negotiate, or would they be inhibited by third-party rights issues?

• Would publishers think it would damage their business model?
• Do publishers think that additional sales of the other works would justify the effort involved in creating and managing the embed codes and licensing applicable to different parts of the content?
• What would happen when the limits had been reached? Would there be charges for further uses, or would the embedded content no longer be available?
• Would it be acceptable to have charges to users who wanted to use the embedded content after the limits had been reached?
• Would publishers think that this could enhance their brand and reputation?
• Would it be better to monitor usage to check that it is within acceptable limits, rather than impose “hard” limits.
• How would the effect  on publishers’ sales be measured?