During the current pandemic, not all students studying from home have the same access rights to scholarly content. That’s especially true of learners that are studying abroad at a partner organisation or foreign campus for a UK qualification.  

Many UK education providers are grappling to understand whether they can provide legitimate access to licensed published content for such international students.International students also include those who have been repatriated to their home counties and are now having to access learning materials from home which, in the majority of cases, means that they’re now remote learners.Representatives of SCONUL, Research Libraries UK, Universities UK International and the UK higher education (HE) library community have asked us for guidance around providing such remote access to licensed content to students based outside of the UK.Providing access to licenced content to students outside of the UKThe key question that has come to the fore is whether libraries can legitimately provide access to licensed content to students when they are outside of the UK? And, if so, can this be done when they are studying at home?[#pullquote#]are they registered with the UK education provider, or not?[#endpullquote#]For Jisc agreements, the answer lies in the underpinning educational contract that covers the relationship between transnational education (TNE) or international students and the awarding UK education provider – are they registered with the UK education provider, or not?Where students are registered with the UK education provider, access to scholarly content for these students can be provided. [#pullquote#]that contract for educational services is not always with that UK provider; sometimes, this resides with an overseas partner institution.[#endpullquote#]However, whilst all the students based outside the UK in question are studying for an award from a UK HE education provider, that contract for educational services is not always with that UK provider; sometimes, this resides with an overseas partner institution.For instance, a student studying from home at a Malaysian university may be on a programme of study that leads to an award from a UK university, but the Malaysian university may be responsible for delivering educational services, and therefore, the party the student is registered with.Working with key publishersWe are contacting key publishers to discuss access rights for students based overseas, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. This supports universities, by reducing the burden on intuitions who may also need to work with other publishers, directly, to establishing legitimate access, under their other existing content licenses. Furthermore, as we approach publishers, we also seek to support overseas scenarios where students are studying for an award from a UK university but are not registered with them. We are doing this via a Licence Addendum to Jisc content agreements. We are approaching publishers to agree to the use of this licence addendum in order to confirm legitimate access to content for such students for a limited period through the pandemic. Jisc welcomes questions from member institutions wanting specific help in navigating their response to trans national education and international student related content licensing challenges that are arising from the COVID-19 pandemic, Please get in touch via help.digitalresources@jisc.ac.uk. Our complete guidance can be found here.