The Chemistry Department pays CU Software for this license on behalf of all uses in Chemistry. It was $1,800 in 2015. |
CU Software writes (6/23/15): We decided to break the departments into two tiers so that the cost could be shared more equitably between single users, departments with small install bases and those with large install bases. Because what we're doing is actually cost recovery for a campus license, the per seat guidelines are a bit fluid. We just wanted to differentiate between large and small. We aren't limiting installs and don't ask the departments to do so. We believe that lab managers will fairly estimate their use and purchase accordingly. If you purchase the small department license but have 52 installs, we're not coming after you. Most of the large users are well above that mark anyway.
Michael Lenetsky approved the (continued) process of having the department cover the cost. Factors to support this decision:
An alternative is get research groups to pay the cost proportional for their use. And here's what happened when this was tried summer 2015: ChemIT was only able to get pledges for $1,300 from research groups for the use of LabVIEW for the 2015-2016 year (26 seats at $50 each). That left out groups who had chosen not to respond.
We guessed there would be about 36 seats, hence the estimated $50 amount to collect the $1,800 needed. And if more than 36 seats were pledged, then we could have lowered the price charged per seat.
To hedge against free riders, we could then submit a "research group charge-back" spreadsheet to Kevin and then somehow hold the software back from users in non-payment groups. All the above would have represented a non-trivial administrative cost.
FYI, for the 26 seats pledged, we heard from the following research groups:
We had expected to also have heard from: