<< Chapter < Page Chapter >> Page >

Assessing exposure to online licenses

As a first step, a society needs to examine how many of its individual members are actually exposed to non-renewal due to online institutional subscriptions. It is important to note that this analysis, by itself, does not determine the extent of a society’s risk of lost membership. However, it does provide the basis on which other empirical and behavioral information can be overlaid—as described in "Quantifying the Potential Effect of Online Access on Membership," in Chapter Three—to provide a more accurate assessment.

Essentially, such an analysis involves the following steps:

  • Identify the society members affiliated with an academic institution (or other institution eligible for an online site license);
  • Identify the institutions subscribing to the society’s journal; and
  • Correlate the two lists.

A society with detailed and consistent data on both its individual members and institutional subscribers should be able to correlate the two lists with a fair degree of precision; for example, determining exactly how many members teach, do research, or curate at each subscribing institution. Such comparisons often require extensive and tedious data cleansing—for example, ensuring that all the permutations of an institution’s name have been normalized. If, as is not uncommon, subscription agents do not provide detailed subscriber data for their customers, the society will need to extrapolate from the known data. The results of such an analysis might be summarized as in Example A . The analysis may reveal that a relatively small number of institutions represent a disproportionate number of exposed members. If this is the case, the society should be able target membership marketing efforts to remind members of the society’s benefits.

However, a society that only has information about members by profession or title (for example, academic, professor, architect, student, consultant, etc.) will be limited to determining the approximate percentage of its members that might be exposed to an institutional site license. Further, a society that has gathered its member profile information by means of a survey has the additional issue of sample size to contend with, and the validity of extrapolating the survey’s results to the society’s entire membership.

Lacking more precise data requires the society to make assumptions about its exposure. An analysis such as that provided in Example B indicates that the society’s exposure could be anywhere from 0 to 1800 members. A society with considerable aversion to risk would be tempted to err on the high side, probably overstating its actual exposure, while another society might understate its exposure. Although the analysis illustrated in Example B is imperfect, it provides a basis for assessing the worst-case risk scenario. The analysis of institutional subscribers by subscriber type can also help inform the society’s online pricing decisions; for example, to determine whether tiered pricing, by institution size or type, might be warranted. See below, “Tiered Pricing Models.”.

Get Jobilize Job Search Mobile App in your pocket Now!

Get it on Google Play Download on the App Store Now




Source:  OpenStax, Transitioning a society journal online: a guide to financial and strategic issues. OpenStax CNX. Aug 26, 2010 Download for free at http://cnx.org/content/col11222/1.1
Google Play and the Google Play logo are trademarks of Google Inc.

Notification Switch

Would you like to follow the 'Transitioning a society journal online: a guide to financial and strategic issues' conversation and receive update notifications?

Ask