The 2CUL E-Resources Team recommends that we not renew the Resource Manager Consortial Edition product with ProQuest/Serials Solutions (renewal cost: $20,000 split between Cornell and Columbia). We have found it to be not an adequate workflow sharing tool as designed, and in some cases to not function even as designed. The few functions that we still can take advantage of do not justify the $20,000 cost to renew when our current subscription ends in February. We feel that we can make considerably better progress operating together in the separate instances of Resource Manager, than we can with the CE layer.
This decision will also open up an opportunity to move to the Intota platform for our e-resource management, if we feel that gives us improved workflow options. We feel that Serials solutions is still a good place for us to be collaborating, but that the CE system is not a viable piece of the overall puzzle for us.
Renewal date - February 1, 2015
Communicate cancellation with ProQuest by December 1, 2014
Migration was rather challenging and we expected to have more of this handled by ProQuest than was possible in the end. In particular:
- License Data Uploader - No response from PQ, finally heard that the process would take months. Seems to be a completely non-automated process. We ended up manually entering the data ourselves.
- Contacts - Columbia contacts migrated into CE were full of data migration errors (contact roles). Cornell developed spreadsheets of data to migrate, but we were concerned that the automatic migration would not work well enough to make it worthwhile
Slowness of Client Center itself is an issue. CE compounds this as there ends up being more clicking.
Massive slowness at Columbia is a separate, but high priority issue. See support issue #:
The four "shareable" aspects of CE include:
Databases
- Our hope was to be able to manage some of our common ejournal, ebook, and database collections via CE
Reality:
- Inherited resources have no flexibility on the local level for even slight variation in titles or status. Very few resources licensed by 2CUL partners actually match 100%
-The status of any resources inherited from the parent 2CUL system appear as "From Consortium," requiring us to navigate to the CE system to even see what the current status of the resource is.
Contacts
We had hoped to manage all contacts at the 2CUL CE level. This would have provided a one stop location for identifying contacts when troubleshoorting or maintaining resources for each other.
All contacts will be entered in the CE, then shared with both local RMs
- Staff will inherit relevant contacts from the CE and attach to providers and databases as appropriate
Licenses
- All Licenses will be input at CE (with the exception of Cornell’s Phase 1 work).
- These will be shared to both CULs, and inherited as needed.
- These CE versions will be copied in the local RM (essentially working like a template), edited for local information (scanned license URL, Auth Users, other exceptions)
- The local copy will be attached to appropriate resources.
- Assumption: We will always need to copy the CE version of the license in the local RMs as we will have some local data to encode (Auth users, etc...)
Conclusion: This would be possible, though it would be ideal if we could share a common license and edit several local fields off that shared license.
Notes
We concluded that there was little to be gained regarding common 2CUL notes without having more robust functionality for the other aspects of the system.
Summary of functionality and issues:
Not really a "shared workflow" tool. Really a top down consortia tool.
Recommend: Cancel CE, explore Intota platform for e-resource management, get involved in Intota consortial functionality implementation planning. Ideally at a zero additional cost.
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CE status review – CE has not been as particularly fruitful thus far due to bugs and generally not meeting our expectations for functionality. Let’s discuss where we are with it and where to go from here. The four areas that are possible to share data via CE are:
- Databases - Possible workflows for jointly managing commonly held resources. Limited in functionality: Status appears as "From Consortium" when viewed in local RM system. All editing and full information is done at CE level with not smooth path to access the functions.
- Contacts - Our intent was to store all Contacts at the CE level, then connect them to appropriate providers and databases at either the CE or local level, depedning on the situation. This would have reduced double entry of data and also allowed for easier identification of relevant contacts across 2CUL. Unfortunately, a software bug makes this not function as desired or designed. We have an outstanding ticket for this issue.
- Licenses - Our intent was to enter all e-resource licenses at the CE level, then use those as templates in the local RM systems in order to make necessary institutional customization. We expected to be able to save effort by entering 90% of the license data once for both insitutions. This seems to function as desired, but this one function is not enough to justify the cost for CE.
Pros of ditching CE:
- Intota becomes an option
- Potential savings in time/effort can be found without CE