« One Firm's Experience with West KM | Main | Law Firms Reinvent KM »
July 30, 2005
Monitoring Electronic Subscriptions
The vast majority of premium research services are available via the web, and generally speaking, that's the way we want it. But there's just one little drawback. Web-based for-fee services often offer only one billing choice, a flat-rate subscription fee. Paying by the concurrent user, or simply paying for the time you use, seems to have gone the way of the dinosaur. There are notable exceptions, of course, such as Lexis, Westlaw and Dialog. But for the most part, transaction based pricing is hard to find.
So now that we're paying a flat-rate for all this content, these same vendors don't seem inclined to provide detailed usage information. Perhaps they're just not properly motivated. I'm guessing they don't want us to know that the service that we paid $10,000 was used only 5 times. This lack of accountability has resulted in a whole new category of usage tracking products such as Missiontrek's Research Agent, OneLog, and offerings from both Lexis and Westlaw. But you have to ask, why should we have to buy and install software in order to get usage statistics that should be provided to us by the vendor?
At least one publisher has heard our pleas. CCH has just introduced account administrative tools for their online offerings, which include a usage reporting utility for generating usage reports based on user ID, practice area or client matter number. For a quick online demo, visit the CCH web site at: http://business.cch.com/irn/usageReports.htm
That's one down, and a whole bunch more to go.
Comments
Cindy, Thank you for mentioning OneLog. However OneLog does much more then just track usage. OneLog is a single sign-on solution that can authenticate to ANY web based resource, irrespective if the resource is IP or password protected. OneLog effectively manages both organisational & individual passwords. More importantly, OneLog will assist you in managing & reducing costs associated with your subscriptions. OneLog's unique Centralised Usage Statistics will help manage budgets effectively and empower you to allocate funds from one resource to another. These statistics are not available anywhere else! OneLog can track usage by individual, office location, resource, defined group & client matter number. OneLog can track time, sessions, concurrent users and even turnaways. In addition, OneLog will validate & provide transactional reports for cost recovery.
Posted by: Peter at August 4, 2005 04:00 PM
Post a comment
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)
