One of the most vexing problems at the University is the difficulty in determining whether or not a particular piece of software is already licensed for use at the University, whether or not you or your research team is eligible to utilize that software, and whether or not a new license needs to be purchased. The Advisory Council hopes to rectify this problem with the assistance of ITS, Penn State’s central IT organization. Solving the problem would provide benefits to Penn State’s research community in the form of coordinated site licenses, reduced purchasing costs, and less delay in the software acquisition process. Note that this problem is not as simple as it sounds in a large University with broadly dispersed purchasing authority.
Long-term, ITS has embarked on a project to identify and deploy a “software license repository” tool, with the goal of providing a single source of information about all the software licenses held by the University. The Advisory Council supports this project and encourages researchers to utilize the tool once it is available.
Short-term, while we do not have a simple solution to the problem, we suggest the following:
- Carefully track your own software purchases. Understand what licenses you hold and when they expire. Utilize a “tickler system” to remind you of upcoming license renewal dates. Plan ahead to avoid the problems that arise when licenses unexpectedly expire. Once it is available, register your software licenses in the new software license repository and use it to track your purchases.
- Contact the local IT unit in your College or Institute prior to making any purchases. Many local IT units handle software purchases for a broad range of purposes across their unit, and even in those units where purchasing does not flow through local IT, the local IT unit is generally aware of software in use across the unit. The odds are good that your local IT unit can give you a definitive answer as to whether or not your unit is licensed to use a particular piece of software.
- If you are concerned about software availability for your students in public computer labs, CLC (a unit of ITS) is the right group to contact. They maintain a public list of software available in computer labs, here: clc.its.psu.edu/labs/software. You can use the form on that same page to request additional software. CLC is often tightly scheduled, so the more advance notice you can give, the better off you will be.
- If your local IT unit cannot provide a definitive answer about a particular piece of software, contact Software @ Penn State via their website at software.psu.edu. Software @ Penn State is the ITS unit responsible for licensing software for use at the University, and they have the broadest picture of software availability across the University. Note that by far the easiest method of interacting with them is via their Yammer page (visit yammer.psu.edu, search for “Software at Penn State”), where you can ask about license availability and will generally receive a rapid response.