We have been asked a lot of questions about what will happen to Intute and its services following the withdrawal of JISC funding in July 2011. You can find the answers to our most frequently asked questions below.
What will happen to the Intute Website?
Following Intute's closure in July 2011, the website will remain available for three years. However the site will not be maintained or updated, and no additional resources will be added.
Why have JISC made this decision?
As stated in the JISC statement about the Intute review, when services "reach the end of their existing funding cycle it is always intended, wherever possible, that they move from being fully funded to being part-funded or fully sustained by other sources". Unfortunately in the current economic climate no realistic alternative funding model for Intute as it currently stands has been identified.
However, we are working to ensure that the legacy of Intute lives on, and we are working with other organisations in the sector to find a new home for Intute content.
Why can't Intute continue without JISC funding?
Over the last three years, we have investigated alternative funding models for Intute, including alternative grant funding, subscription and advertising/sponsorship, and we have spoken to librarians, academics and students to find out what they think. Unfortunately, we have been unable to find a model that will sustain Intute in its current form into the future.
We have also investigated membership models for the Virtual Training Suite and Informs, and we hope to make further announcements about these services soon.
What will happen to the Intute Website?
JISC has given us funding for the 2010/11 academic year to maintain the Intute catalogue of resources. We will not be adding any additional content, but the existing resources will be checked and broken links will be fixed. We are maintaining a list of Intute services that will be available until July 2011.
After July 2011 the website will be available, but it will not be maintained or updated.
We have spent a lot of time integrating Intute into our website. Should we start removing links to the catalogue and other Intute services?
We recommend that you remove all Intute integration tools before July 2011.
Our integration tools will continue to work until July 2011, and the Intute catalogue of resources will be maintained and checked, although we will not be adding any additional content. Intute will not be maintained after July 2011.
What will happen to Informs and the Virtual Training Suite after July 2011?
During 2010/11 the Virtual Training Suite and Informs have been exploring alternative funding models, including subscription and membership. We hope to make further announcements about the future of these services in March 2011.
Can another organisation take on Intute data and content?
We are looking into ways of keeping the records in the internet resource catalogue available to the community after July 2011, and we have been approached by a number of organisations who are interested in taking on Intute content.
We are currently taking advice on legal issues and terms of use but if you are interested in repurposing Intute records, we'd be happy to speak to you.
Could the Intute content be creative commons licensed?
Intute currently operates under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 UK: England & Wales licence, which makes the content available free at the point of use to the UK teaching, learning, and research communities. We don't anticipate that this will change but we are currently taking advice on legal issues and terms of use.
Can we pay to access Intute?
Over the last three years, we have investigated this option, and we have spoken to librarians, academics and students to find out what they think. Our findings indicated that this would not provide a realistic funding option for Intute.
Can you open up Intute for community updating and contributions? This model may be a better fit now with the rise of social /community web 2.0 ways of working.
We are currently exploring the possibility of exporting all of our catalogue records to Delicious, and we have been in touch with the new owners. We hope to start testing soon, and we'll post updates to the blog when we have more news about this.
Is there any way to save Intute? What about an internet fundraising drive or trying to raise funds from institutions, foundations or advertising?
In principle - maybe, but in practice we have investigated alternative funding models for Intute, including alternative grant funding, subscription and advertising/sponsorship, and we have been unable to find a model that will sustain Intute in its current form into the future. Intute as it stands costs over 1 million a year to run excluding the contributions associated with housing staff at our different partner institutions.
