Software licensing: International solution to a very local problem

By the start of the first lockdown in March 2020, staff in the music and sound production area had generated enough evidence of digital music production to be able to justify the final outcomes of student awards.

However, a few people had to complete some work, and as it was not possible for students or staff to access the campus, the vital software resources only available on-site at the Ayr Campus meant that some students had to defer.

We have a longstanding relationship with the American company AVID who make Pro Tools and Sibelius, both of which are the industry standard software in music production across the world, since we became Scotland’s first certified training provider in 2002.

With the cost of the software way outside most students' budget, we have always thought it would be good if we could allow them to access the software when the computers they are installed on aren't in use.

This, we thought, was never possible due to a list of reasons including conflicting technologies and licence contracts for use off-campus.

However, at the start of 2021 when we knew there would be a long period of absence due to ‘Lockdown 2.0’, we knew we had an issue and needed to find a solution. Many of the students had not been able to complete enough work up to December to enable staff to justify a pass in the units that used Pro Tools - if we were not to return to the campus to access the software before June.

This would have led to almost all HNC and HND Music and Sound Production students requiring to defer. After several calls to my opposite numbers across the sector in my area, it became apparent that other FE institutions had been given the budget to purchase extra licences to give to students for them to use at home. The cost of this for the college would be in the many thousands of pounds, on top of the money already spent on the licences we had sitting idle in the college.

I decided to call AVID in America. After speaking with Bryan Castle, Director of Learning Partnerships for AVID I pleaded our case for them to help us out in this time of need. After a few days, the company did provide us with licences for our music composition classes which would run for six months to give to our students.

Great!

The problem was, this only helped about one-third of the music and sound students who needed the far more complex licence for Pro Tools. So, after several other meetings with Atlanta-based Bryan, he said: “Well I can ask but there will be a cost involved in more licences as there are for the other AVID certified locations and, to be honest, this may take some time to organise due to COVID restrictions.”

This was an issue. He then suggested that he knew of another way to help students get access to the licences without any extra cost that he had done with some other US-based institutions where budgets were tight.

“You could create an individual, generic licence and usernames for students that they can access from home on a rolling basis. But creating 70 of these will take some time and effort?”

I approached my lecturing colleagues who had been keen to find a solution for the students they had identified as falling further and further behind. Iain Massey and David McAulay said they would take on the extra workload despite their already busy schedule, liaise with students, help them to find out of their computers were suitable, download the software and help with licence and installation. They then created all the licence profiles and helped students at all hours to get their systems running within a few days.

We now have all HNC and HND Music students at home working on Sibelius software and all our HNC and HND Sound Production students working from home using Pro Tools. The software they so desperately needed access to to continue their studies.

By working as a team, being creative and willing to find a solution despite financial constraints, we managed to create parity for our students to that of other students across Scotland without incurring any further cost.

To top it all off, the system we now have in place can work whilst we use the same Pro Tools licences even when we return to campus. Meaning we have an entirely flexible and legal licence structure moving forward.

A big thanks must also go to the ICT team for their assistance, particularly the ever-helpful Gillian McClue.