And the surveys said...

I’m currently reviewing the responses to our two recent online surveys, regarding Overseas Campus-Based Students and a potential new Pilot Printed Music Licence. Both the quality and quantity of responses has been terrific, and we are so grateful to all those who participated. Your feedback is going to be hugely helpful as we think about the progression of two potential new offerings.

Firstly, we wanted to find out more about the developing landscape of overseas campus-based students (commonly referred to as ‘OCBS’) – that is, students registered or joint-registered at a UK HEI, but – under a range of possible models –based at a campus overseas (this could be the campus of an overseas branch of an HEI, or of a third-party organisation with whom an HEI is in partnership).

There were a couple of areas we were particularly keen to learn more about. The international legal landscape is key to understanding HEIs’ arrangements in practice: individual countries have their own legislative frameworks, and many (but not all) countries have organisations like CLA, although the nature of the available coverage varies. It’s also crucial for us to get a better picture of how recent political and international developments might impact – is there, for example, a slowdown in the global movement of students? And are overseas organisations working towards gaining their own degree-awarding powers? The UK HE brand is held in huge regard, but it appears that China and Malaysia in particular are working further on their national HE systems.

Your responses, together with feedback that we receive from our HE contacts on a day-to-day basis, are really going to help us shape a relevant offering. We’re working hard with the UUK/GuildHE Copyright Working Group on this, in the hope we can roll out our Pilot as a formal (though still optional!) offering from August 2017. We’ll keep the sector updated, so look out for more news soon.

Our other survey concerned a concept that is new to everyone. You might know that CLA is the sole agent for Printed Music Licensing Ltd (PMLL), a subsidiary of the Music Publishers’ Association; and it was under this arrangement that we launched the Schools Printed Music Licence in 2014. The blanket licensing of printed music is a relatively new concept, but has been hugely successful in the Schools sector, and, we believe, has the potential for great success in the HE sector too (though we recognise that Music in HE has a set of requirements quite different to those of the Schools sector!).

So, following our hugely interesting Focus Group held in October last year, we decided to launch an online survey. The survey itself was pretty intense, but all of us in the group felt this was necessary in order for CLA and PMLL to understand the issues at stake. We’re so grateful to all those who took part, and were delighted at such a wide range of participants including library staff, academic staff and students.

As this was a more detailed survey, there is lots to review; but the hope is that we may be able to launch a Pilot HE Printed Music Licence in September 2017. More updates will follow shortly.