1. VitalSource Customer Success
  2. Publisher Admins
  3. Content Management Timelines and Best Practices

Content Management Best Practices – U.S. and Canada

Avatar
Brook Mecham
Follow

Content Management Best Practices

Below you will find information about 

Task and Timeline for Rights and Pricing

Content management best practices time grid.png

  • Timely change windows ensure content availability for adoption in the right channels, avoiding premature removal and student access disruptions.
    • Refer to the Removing Content from Distribution section for more details.
  • The removal window, for rights, distribution changes or moving content out, follows the add/drop period, which varies by school and calendar.
    • Refer to the Removing Content from Distribution section for more details.
  • Pricing updates should be made by 15 September for Spring adoptions and 15 March for summer and autumn terms and 1 May if an institution has distinct pricing for summer and autumn terms. 
    • To ensure that your titles are visible and adoptable in all available channels, ensure that Inclusive Access pricing and Digital List pricing are both assigned.
    • Providing all price changes within the requested timeframes allows us to prevent end-user disruption and ensure that pricing is updated correctly across all channels.

Distribution Rights

Screenshot 2023-12-15 at 11.00.35 AM.png

Distribution rights should be applied before the adoption window. There are two ways to grant rights to content:

  • Manual – a distributor has distribution rights to the product in Manage and will retain the distribution rights until a system user removes distribution rights or the content goes out of distribution. Removing Distribution rights should only be attempted after add/drop periods are over, to ensure that students maintain access to purchased content.

    *Please watch our Set Distribution Rights and Custom Pricing for Your Content page for more information. 

  • Distribution sets – these sets are often referred to as the national catalogue. If a distributor uses national catalogues to adopt their content and the content falls out of the catalogue based on changes to sales rights or channel settings, the distributor will also lose the distribution rights. Changes to sales rights or channel settings should also be done after add/drop periods are over

Removing Content from Distribution

To ensure that users can access your content through term starts, do not set items to go off sale between 1-2/25 January (spring starts) and 1-9/15 August (autumn starts); otherwise, users could be impacted negatively. 

When a title is removed from distribution during a term, users lose access to the title purchased. The publisher should then follow these steps:

  1. Put the title back into Limited Distribution.
  2. Assign distribution rights to the school.
  3. Lock the distribution rights. After the term ends, the publisher needs to remember to:
  4. Unlock the previously assigned rights."
  5. Place the title back into OOD (Out of Distribution).

What is OOD (Out of Distribution)?

The title is not available for distribution whatsoever, although existing users will have access to the title until their licence expires. Content that needs to move to a non-distributable status should first be moved to Limited Distribution with an Off-sale date a minimum of 30 days into the future.

  • Users with active licences retain access even when content moves 'Out of Distribution'. Schedule Off-Sale Dates after add/drop periods to prevent access interruptions.
  • Resellers maintain access post-Off-Sale Date only if rights are locked, granting them 365 days of Limited Distribution access.
  • Enterprise institutions are provided an additional year of access to content that is going out of distribution in Manage.
    • The way the VST internal maintenance routine works is it looks for an off-sale date on the titles in use by those enterprise schools. If it sees an off-sale date, it locks the title for an additional 335 days. This process runs weekly.
    • The caveat here is if there is an “immediate take down”, currently these enterprise locked distribution sets are removed.

What is LD (Limited Distribution)?

The title is not available for general sale but may still be available to certain distributors or courses.

  • If an asset is placed in Limited Distribution without an off-sale date, it can remain in Limited Distribution indefinitely until someone adds the off-sale date or updates the status manually.
  • If an asset is in limited distribution and has an off-sale date, then within 30 days it’ll move to out of distribution. 
  • Limited Distribution automates notifications to current users that the content will no longer be available for future adoption. After 30 days, the content transitions to 'Out of Distribution' status.

Rush Readiness Best Practices

Please visit our Rush Readiness Best Practices - Spring page for more information. 

Managing Old Editions

Add an updated edition in Manage.

  • Incorporate the previous edition's ISBN in the new Asset's metadata to enhance discoverability and linkage between editions.
  • To prevent current users from losing access, follow the recommended windows when replacing older editions with newer ones.

 

Was this article helpful?