Journal Supply Chain Efficiency Improvement Pilot (JSCEIP)

• Do you have access to all of the journals for which you paid subscriptions on January 1 of the year?

• Do you know what journals are included in the bundles that are being bought?

• Can you guarantee that only qualified users are accessing your properly licensed content?

Questions like these are fears over loss of control for entitlements on either end of the Journal Supply Chain.

The Journal Supply Chain Efficiency Improvement Pilot is an industry-wide pilot project which aims to discover whether the creation of a standard, commonly used identifier for institutions will be beneficial to all parties involved in the journal supply chain. Exploring the various advantages and implications of use for such an identifier, the project sees participants working closely together to integrate inter-operability around a standard identifier codified with standard descriptive metadata. We expect to achieve:

• Establish the characteristics and context needed for the identifier, and the support mechanisms needed to work in a wide variety of situations within the supply chain, and the extent to which existing legacy institutional component identifiers can be used as aliases.

• Create a standard for metadata for the identifier and for any related institutional component with an established legacy identifier and examine the relationship with other managed identifiers such as the ISIL

• Identify the context and placing of the identifier within existing EDI standards and work flows

• Identify the context and placing of the identifier in supply-chain databases of institutions

• Identify the context and placing of the identifier in authentication and authorization systems

• Identify the context and placing of the identifier in standard usage reports for publishers and consumers

• Examine the interaction with other identifiers such as the ISIL

• Explore possibilities for creation of a user interface for customers to interrogate and update institutional information 

• Explore a governance for an organization to take the use of the identifier forward in a neutral way

Upon completion of the project, the participants believe that an identifier will be deployed within the supply chain such that there will be greater reassurance that the questions raised initially above will be answered in such a manner as to reduce concerns for dysfunctional operation within the journal supply, eliminating some of the problems leading to loss of service for users or loss of revenues for suppliers.