2 May 2018

The Jisc Model Licence has an international reputation for excellence, and is used as a benchmark across the world. In 2017 we undertook a review of our model licence to make sure that it reflects the realities of contemporary teaching, study and research and that it is up to date and responsive to recent developments in electronic publishing and scholarly communication. We also want the wording of the licence to be as straightforward and transparent as possible, while at the same time being legally robust.

Key changes include:

• Definition of Authorised User: we have changed our wording to align it with that of the HESA Aggregate Offshore record (HESA AOR), to adddress the question of whether overseas users may be included in the licence as Authorised Users or whether they are Additional Authorised Users.
• Post-cancellation access (PCA): we have firmed up the wording around PCA, bring greater granularity and clarity, to help you know exactly what paid-for content users would be enitled to access if an institution cancelled its subscription to a particular journal deal.
• Permitted Uses: we have expanded the range of things that staff and students are allowed to do with the licensed material, to incorporate recent changes to UK copyright law.
• Schedules: the Industry Standards schedule has been expanded and brought up-to-date, and we have introduced a new schedule of Service Levels to give greater detail around areas such as platform downtime and response times. There is also a new schedule of obligations on the Publisher for agreements that include an OA publishing element.

We began using the new model licence for new or renewed agreements in January 2018. Agreements that are already in progress will continue with their existing licence.

Further information

The new model licences can be found here: How model licences work. More information about the changes we made can be found on this page: Guide to the Jisc Model Licence.

Categories: licensing, standards