UXPROD-1755: Support display of license terms in discovery/user facing interfaces

In order to support the display of license terms and other relevant information in user facing interfaces we are proposing to support the following:

Support an API (like an edge API) which will accept a call for a resource or license ID, and pass back a JSON representation of public information for the relevant license. Note that we are only planning to return a JSON representation of the information - any formatting for display and integration into the relevant interfaces would be done by the institution implementing this in their discovery/patron facing interface.

The types of identifier which the API is likely to accept are:

• eHoldings resource ID
• License ID
• Title identifier

To enable the appropriate display of license properties and related information we will:

• Enable each term value on a license to be public or not
• Enable a default public/not public flag on each term
• It will be possible to override the public/not public flag for a specific term value on a license
• Add an additional note field to each term value intended for public display

We want to identify any questions or comments on any of the above, and any areas where this might fall short of functionality you would need to display terms in a patron facing interface.

@annikaschroeer commented:

It would be good to have some more detailed explanations of how the matching will be done. If a title belongs to more than one agreement/license (e.g. for different coverages), will both information be given back? What kind of system is supposed to know of the license ID?

@annikaschroeer - In terms of a title belonging to more than one agreement/license, I might reverse the question to ask - what kind of behaviour would you want to see in this case?

@annikaschroeer in terms of ‘what kind of system is suppose to know of the license ID’ - I don’t think there is a particular kind of system, but supporting a lookup by license ID seems a basic bit of functionality that would make sense.

License IDs could potentially be shared through data export from Folio and then used elsewhere

But I don’t have a firm use case for this, so maybe it is a low priority or not needed right now?

Ah, sorry @ostephens, I always miss mentions in discuss.

@annikaschroeer - In terms of a title belonging to more than one agreement/license, I might reverse the question to ask - what kind of behaviour would you want to see in this case?

Without any regard to how it might be achieved, I imagine something like this:

Journal ABC, Detail view in discovery system
ISSN: 1234-5678

• available via platform X [Link: http://platformx.com/journalabc]
  • digital copy: permitted
  • print copy: permitted
  • scholarly sharing: prohibited
  • …
• available via platform Y [Link: http://platformy.com/journalabc]
  • digital copy: prohibited
  • print copy: permitted
  • scholarly sharing: permitted
  • …

This means, the API would need to return not only license terms for a given title identifier (ISSN, …), but group them (by agreement?) and somehow match them with the access link. I don’t know if or how this is possible with different link resolvers etc.

So UMass discussed this and we think the concept is fine on the FOLIO end, we just want to hear from EBSCO about how this sort of feature will be implemented in an EDS instance. For example, will terms be passed to EDS through the connection to eHoldings or in some other way? Maybe @kgambrell can help answer this?

I think, but might be wrong, that one of our intended use cases would be relevant here.
At Cornell, we want to highlight and publicize which vendors have good or bad patron privacy positions. While multiple factors will go into how each content provider is ‘graded’, the eventual ‘grade’ will likely be displayed as a red/yellow/green indicator. We intend to draw a score from the app and represent it to the public through the public catalog or some other source.

Of course, this is a long ways off; we have a concept, but little else, at present. Still, I raise it because I think this is something that reflects the questions Owen is asking here. (Though, again, I might be wrong.)

So in a nutshell, we intend on having a field in the license terms app that records our analysis of most content providers, most likely as a number. We’ll pull that number from that field and use it to display a red, yellow, or green icon via public-facing resources, along with information that explains what the icon means, and how the vendor received that ranking.

I hope this is useful. If not, please ignore.