COC3: Lexis-Nexis AKA Academic UNIVERSE

[Ann Okerson <ann.okerson@yale.edu>]

COC3 Reports, #6
February 23, 1998

Lexis-Nexis: These are notes regarding the presentation about UNIVERSE
(WWW) products including Congressional & Statistical UNIVERSE, but
primarily the Lexis-Nexis UNIVERSE product, which has just undergone a
title/name change and is called Academic UNIVERSE. 

Summary:

1.  Substantial price increases have been announced recently for Academic
UNIVERSE.  The latest price schedule (released in February 1998)  appears
to represent a significant increase over that published for Lexis-Nexis
UNIVerse published in September 1997). 

2.  Under the new pricing schedule, smaller libraries pay more per
full-time-equivalent student (FTE) than larger ones (the FTE price goes
down as the number of FTE rises). 

3.  Content that was was to have been the same as that in "traditional"
Lexis-Nexis and then Lexis-Nexis-UNIVERSE (or so library customers
understood as recently as late 1997) appears to be reduced.

4.  Customers may subscribe to Academic UNIVERSE under the cheaper FTE
mode announced in 9/97; this window is open through 5/31/98 only. 

5.  Effective 7/1/98, these early-signing customers will incur (in some
cases significant) increases over the next four years that will take them
to the higher pricing levels announced in 2/98. 

Presentation by:
Mark Capaldini, President and CEO of CIS
Also, David Braden; John Beal, Director of Special Sales; Scott Eller,
Representative for Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas

Relationships between the UNIVERSE Products/Historical Background:

Congressional Information Services (CIS) and University Publications of
America (UPA) have been Reed Elsevier companies since 1979.  Lexis-Nexis
was purchased by Reed Elsevier in 1994.  CIS/UPA are now a wholly owned
subsidiary of Lexis-Nexis.  Integration of three product lines
(Lexis-Nexis, Statistical, and Congressional) began in 1997 when the
resources of Lexis-Nexis were deployed to develop Congressional Compass
into Congressional UNIVERSE.  Also, as of 1/1/98, a formerly separate
educational unit of Lexis-Nexis was integrated with CIS.  As a result, CIS
is now responsible for representing Lexis-Nexis to academic institutions
for everything except the Law School Program, which is administered by the
Legal Division of Lexis-Nexis.  

CIS now represents three brand names in academic information:
	CIS
	UPA
	Lexis-Nexis

This has been a very interesting period, because of the development of
three UNIVERSE products and the absorption of Lexis-Nexis services.
Capaldini characterized it like driving a car down a highway at 60 miles
an hour, rebuilding it without slowing it down and dropping a few nuts and
bolts on the highway.  The CIS alliance with L-N builds on strengths; CIS
has the academic library know-how and expertise with outstanding customer
service.  Lexis-Nexis brings advanced and cutting edge technology support
and a massive database.

The constellation of UNIVERSE products includes:

1.  Congressional UNIVERSE, 1/97
2.  Academic UNIVERSE:
	Lexis-Nexis UNIVERSE 8/97, becomes Academic UNIVERSE 1/98
3.  Statistical UNIVERSE, 1/98
4.  Historical UNIVERSE, coming Summer 98

A family of web-based products with common features:

o All offer campus wide access, based on FTE
o Breadth and currency of information
o Searching is intuitive and easy to use, with similarities between
  products
o Printing and downloading at no extra cost
o FTE pricing makes UNIVERSE affordable for small schools (?????)
o Consortial discounts:  value-based pricing is tied to FTEs less
  consortial discount

FTEs are distributed in "bands":

Bands range from 0-1000, up to 45,000 FTEs
o 16 bands for Congressional and Statistical UNIVERSE
o 17 bands for Academic UNIVERSE
o The FTEs can include distance learners; access is based on web
  technology (IP domain access), and if customers can solve the user
  authentication problem, then including these remote users is no problem
  for CIS.
o Bands look as follows:

Congressional UNIVERSE
FTEs				Institutional Price
1-1,000				$3,000
1,001-2,000			$3,750
[SNIP]
10,001- 12,500			$9,000
[SNIP]
35,001-45,000			$14,250

==>Fixed costs need to be recovered in serving an institution regardless
of size -- therefore, smaller institutions pay more

Academic UNIVERSE
FTEs				Institutional Price
1-1,500				$9,000
1,501-3,000			$11,850
[SNIP]
9,001-11,000			$39,775
[SNIP]
42,001-45,000			$131,450

==>Fixed costs need to be recovered in serving an institution regardless
of size -- therefore, smaller institutions pay more

Statistical UNIVERSE (Select Base Edition plus individual modules)
FTEs					Discount
1-1,000				80%
1,001-2,000			75%
[SNIP]
10,001-12,500			45%
[SNIP]
35,001-45,000			5%

CONSORTIAL Discounts for all CIS UNIVERSE Services: 

To calculate the consortial price, begin with single campus price based 
on FTE for individual institution.  Then compute consortial discount. 

No. of Institutions in Consortium		% Discount

3-5							5%
6-10							10%
11-15							15%
16-20							20%
21+							25%

Principles for consortial pricing:

1.  CONSISTENT -- same for all CIS UNIVERSE services
2.  SIMPLE -- 5 discount levels up to 25%
3.  LOW ABSOLUTE COST (?)
N.B.:  All UNIVERSE data is licensed from other providers who are getting
incremental revenue.  There is pressure on CIS by some providers to up
revenues dramatically or content will be removed.  The trick is to achieve
the right balance.

Meeting the communication needs of consortia:

o As of now, dedicated representation (adding special consortia;
  representative), especially to handle administrative questions
o For answers to such questions, email:  cisinfo@lexis-nexis.com

Academic UNIVERSE transition to CIS stable of products and prices:

o "Old" (summer 1997) pricing scale is extended through May 31, 1998
o Effective as of June 1, regular CIS pricing schedules and consortial
  discounts apply o  The earlier (recently posted) cut-off date (2/28) was
  established incorrectly by CIS
o Post-May 31:  additional customers will pay 1998 prices less the
  Consortial Discount
o  Where price increases are "large" these increases for charter
  subscribing consortia will be phased in up to four years
o Uniform consortial discounts will apply consistently to current and
  future UNIVERSE services
o Consortial discount schedule is based on Congressional UNIVERSE model

Pricing 1998 and beyond:

o 1998 prices same as 1997 prices; no 1998 price increase
o 1999 and beyond:  price increases to be small, typically 4-5% per year,
  per CIS practice for 20 years 

Content:
o Definitely will be less content in Academic UNIVERSE.
o Currently 13,000 databases in "traditional" Lexis-Nexis.
o Academic UNIVERSE currently contains 5,000 sources total, though they
  are likely to be the more important ones.
o A Lexis-Nexis team is now dedicated to producing a complete and accurate
  Content list that will be available March 1st.
o New publications are constantly added, and an up to date list will be
  maintained at:  www.cispubs.com

Billing:
o Requests by pre-May 31st customers for monthly billing will be honored
o Consortia and institutions will be encouraged to pay annually
o Annual billing only to new customers as of 6/1/98
o Consortial subs beginning mid-fiscal year can elect two payments

License agreement revisions:

o The licenses for all the above CIS products will be re-written and
  harmonized or made close to identical (CIS needs a simpler agreement)
o Want a consistent agreement for all UNIVERSE services
o Will remove the 90 day restriction on downloading by users

Academic UNIVERSE specifics:

o Support has been increased; Lexis-Nexis Dayton staff up by 30% in last
  three months to keep up with demand.
o Full time consortial rep being added 
o Special email address created to answer Academic UNIVERSE questions:
  academic.universe.product.address@lexis-nexis.com
o Current news and information about ALL products & services:
  http://www.cispubs.com

Question:  How is content chosen?
Answer:  We include content that's interesting to the academic community.

Question:  How do you know it is interesting to academic community?  
Answer:  Lots of focus groups ALA -- that's how CIS & STAT were designed
in the first place.  We welcome suggestions for additions to the source
files.

Question:  Would you be willing to work with a small subset of the COC
group to improve the terms of the latest announced pricing arrangements.
Answer:  Would welcome the opportunity.

alo

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