(08-03-2013 03:43 AM)nzmorange Wrote:  1. I saw a stat from the B1G that the CIC has saved B1G institutions $19 million. The CIC has been around since the 60's and there have been 10 B1G schools for the majority of that time, and there are currently 14 schools in the CIC. That's how little research matters. Even if that was $19 million last year (which it wasn't), that would be a savings of about $1,500,000/yr out of $4,000,000,000/yr (using an approximation of PSU yearly operating budget). In other words, the CIC, which is the "premier research collaboration in the world," saves PSU .037%/yr. That's how little it matters.

Not to mention, what is it saving and compared to what? Elsevier ejournal subscription rates for their libraries? Institutional prices on Microsoft Office? What, and how much more are the saving from these discounts compared to what large universities and systems already get, not to mention compared to purchasing consortiums they may otherwise already belong to.

Here's what the CIC brochure says about 2011-2012 savings.
$7 million in purchasing savings (on what, over what? retail?).
$4.4 million in OmniPop savings, which is a high bandwidth fiber optic internet network based in Chicago that connects some (but not all) CIC campuses (not sure how that is saving members cost since they wouldn't be on it otherwise)
$3.2 million in library savings (over what? retail?)
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$14.7 million in savings
/13 members
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$1.13 million in savings
-$0.17 million annual dues
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$0.96 million in annual savings per school ignoring differences in whether they are part of the fiber optic network.

But what is it compared to? If the schools shopped retain, single institutional prices, or other consortium prices? So you are talking about $1 million per year (at most, which isn't much, but it is nice) but I'm sure that is calculated to make it look as big of a number as possible for their brochure...

No one is or is not switching conference because of the CIC. Many of these schools are already part of other purchasing consortiums, so the savings is likely even more minimal.