Licensing fees for databases of expert information to support the students learning and academic research are very expensive. If I understand this correctly, the university has to pay a fee per password for access to the propriatary databases such as DIALOG, LEXIS-NEXUS, APA.
"KRI/Dialog has doubled annual fees paid per-password by its users in the U.S. The new $144 Knight-Ridder Information Membership Fee will bill semi-annually. Overseas users in Europe and Japan, who have not paid an annual fee before, will now pay $72 per password each year." SOURCE http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-18812757.html [LEXIS-NEXUS] charge[S] anything from $20 - $40 just to type in a search statement. If you make a typo and have to re-enter the statement, you get charged again. SOURCE http://www.montague.com/review/lexis.html Level FTE APA Data Fee *1* *Up to 2,499* $575 *2* *2,500–4,999* $850 *3* *5,000–9,999* $1,100 *4* *10,000–14,999* $1,425 *5* *15,000–19,999* $1,925 *6* *20,000–24,999* $2,750 *7* *25,000–59,999* $3,450 *8* *60,000+* Contact APA Notes: [image: square bullet] License fees cover unlimited access for all users affiliated with the institutional licensee. [image: square bullet] Fees apply to geographically distinct institutions, such as a single campus of a university. Multiple campuses, satellite locations, etc., require separate licenses. SOURCE http://www.apa.org/psycEXTRA/pricing.html On Sun, Nov 15, 2009 at 5:27 PM, Jesse Groppi <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hi all, > > I'm definitely just as excitable over this topic as everyone else. > There's so much to get excited about! The first thing that came to my > mind about the cost is that they probably tallied up every > microscopically detailed expense; that's what US schools do, afterall. > Also, some of the expenses may actually overlap with other work MIT > does. I was unsure, though, if that 10-15k was a per year expense, or > per course. The wording in the article was vague, and journalists are > notorious for using statistics at odd angles for their shock value. > > Jesse > http://www.wikieducator.org/User:Jesse_Groppi > skype: jesse.groppi > > On 15/11/2009 08:20, Samuel Rose wrote: > > Hi Steve, greetings Wiki Educator > > > > My name is Sam Rose > > > > I am Director of Forward Foundation, partner in Future Forward > > Institute, creator of open source http://socialmediaclassroom.com, > > http://localfoodsystems.org and a member of http://p2pfoundation.net > > > > a quick response follows: > > > > On Sun, Nov 15, 2009 at 6:34 AM, Steve Foerster<[email protected]> > wrote: > > > >> Interesting article in the Guardian about OERs: > >> > >> http://tinyurl.com/yhf44oj > >> > >> What got me was the part near the end where it's talking about MIT's > >> OpenCourseWare project and says, "But it costs the university between > >> $10,000 and $15,000 to put the material from each course online because > >> the materials have to be properly licensed and formatted." > >> > >> I'm sorry, what? I'm racking my brain trying to figure out how they > >> could possibly spend fifteen grand just getting course materials from a > >> professor's PC to their web server. I mean, yes, they package things as > >> zip files and everything, but fifteen grand?! The only thing I can > >> think of is that they have to buy these materials from their own faculty > >> members, is that the case? > >> > >> (By contrast, imagine what WE could do with thirty million dollars!) > >> > > > > > > Having worked with many Universities, I can tell you that they are > > generally role-based economies, which means that there is a specialist > > for everything. And specialization tends to have been in existence for > > decades or centuries in these institutions. So, this means that MIT > > likely pays not just the professor, but also multiple IT people, PR > > people (including copy editors, program directors, etc), and records > > managers, and archivists to produce this material. So, the number that > > they publish means that this is their accounting of the parts of the > > salary for all of the people in their huge bureaucracy that the work > > is passed around to. > > > > I would be willing to bet that the amount represented as being spent > > is quite accurate, and typical of how a major University would handle > > this. I agree that the amount of resources expended revlieals an > > incredible amount of wastefulness. I agree this demonstrates that > > network-based production ecologies can out-compete traditional > > industrial ecologies on cost and resource usage. I believe it could > > currently be argued that network based production ecologies can also > > out-compete in terms of quality, too. > > > > Right now people "trust" the "brand" of MIT, but what if there were > > one or more ways to "certify" network-based contributions" I think > > that certification/maintaining of open education packages by smaller > > service organizations will increase perceived trust. This > > certification and maintaining could potentially be done by up to > > thousands of collaborating participant groups, educators, etc. > > > > > > > >> -=Steve=- > >> > >> > >> -- > >> Stephen H. Foerster > >> http://hiresteve.com > >> http://hiresteve.com/blog > >> http://wikieducator.org/steve > >> > >> > >>> > >> > > > > > > > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "WikiEducator" group. To visit wikieducator: http://www.wikieducator.org To visit the discussion forum: http://groups.google.com/group/wikieducator To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
