Johns Hopkins SPARS Software FAQ This FAQ is here to help resolve common questions related to spars, purchasing, licensing. You may email us anytime with questions not addressed in this FAQ. License and Maintenance What is a license with concurrency? What is a license with maintenance? What is a license with assurance? Microsoft Enterprise Agreement What is the Microsoft Enterprise Agreement (MSEA)? What is the Maryland Education Enterprise Consortium (MEEC)? What computers are eligible for installing software covered by MEEC? Can faculty and staff take media home for Work at Home (WAH) use? Purchasing FAQs Where/When can I pickup my order? Why are licenses and CDs/DVDs sold separately? Why is newly released software not immediately available through SLIC? What do I do if the software I need is not available on SPARS? General FAQs Can I make copies of your CDs/DVDs? Is support offered if I purchase software from SLIC? Can I get a license code if mine is lost? Do your license codes work with trial versions of software? What is your Software return & exchange policy? What is the difference between departmental, student/personal, and work-at-home purchases? A license is a legally binding agreement between a user and the softare manufacturer, entitling the user to install and run one copy of the software on a computer or device. Installing more copies of software than you have licenses for is a violation of copyright law. Although a license is required for each system on which the software package is installed, it does not include a CD or DVD. Licenses and CDs/DVDs are sold separately and in order to install the program on your machine, a CD/DVD is required. If a CD/DVD for the same program/version has been previously purchased, you may use that same CD/DVD to install it on additional machines. A guide to the ethical and legal use of software for members of the academic community is available here. What is a license with concurrency? A license with concurrency allows you to install the program on two computers instead of having to buy two separate licenses. However, you can only run the program on one computer at a time. License with concurrency is available only for certain products. What is a license with maintenance? A license with maintenance allows customers to receive upgrades for one or more years from the date of purchase or until date of expiration, depending on the software. What is a license with software assurance (SA)? Microsoft's terminology for a license with maintenance. Assurance allows customers to receive free upgrades for licenses and only purchase the CD-ROM of new software. Microsoft Software Assurance currently expires 7/31/2013. An upgrade license allows customers who have purchased an older version of software to update to a newer version without paying the full license fee. Upgrade licenses are only offered for certain products. An annual license is a legally binding agreement between a user and the software manufacturer, entitling the user to run the program on one machine per license for the period of the current contract. This contract period varies by manufacturer but is usually for one year. Installing software on more machines than you have licenses is a violation of the copyright law. An annual license requires payment of an annual fee. A perpetual license is a license that is paid once and does not need to be renewed annually. What is the Microsoft Enterprise Agreement (MSEA)? An agreement between the University System of Maryland and Microsoft gives The Johns Hopkins University faculty and staff access to a host of Microsoft products. The Microsoft Enterprise Agreement (MSEA) provides licensing rights to a suite of frequently used Microsoft products; including Operating System upgrades, Office Productivity Suite, and Programming applications. What is the Maryland Education Enterprise Consortium (MEEC)? Under the contract, members of the Maryland Education Enterprise Consortium (MEEC), which includes Johns Hopkins Institutions, can purchase software at significant discounts. The MEEC is an agreement among K-12, public and independent institutions in Maryland, started at the request of USM chancellor Donald Lagenberg. It is the first education consortium of its kind to work with Microsoft to create a licensing arrangement to serve the specific software needs of K-12 and higher education. The USM is the lead customer contracting on behalf of the MEEC, which currently has over 150 member institutions. For more information on MEEC, please visit their website: www.meec-edu.org What computers are eligible for installing software covered by MEEC? Meec licenses cover all "institutionally owned desktops" at the University for full-time employees. The software must be installed on a portable computer or workstation that is used for or by faculty and staff with FTE status (not students). The computer must meet the minimum system requirements for installing and running each software. Can faculty and staff take media home for Work at Home (WAH) use? Under the campus agreement, faculty and staff have limited work-at-home rights at no extra charge other than the cost of media. Work-at-home rights permit the use of application, system upgrade, and CAL products on personally owned computers for work-related purposes only. All Work At Home media can be purchased via Spars. Be advised of the following additional conditions for use of eligible Microsoft software under the Work At Home policy:
The complete work at home agreement is listed on Spars and has to be agreed upon before users are able to purchase/download work at home software. Please visit Spars to order software. There is a how-to located here. Where/when can I pickup my order? Our office is located in the basement of Garland Hall (Suite 1A) on the Homewood Campus.You will receive an email/phone call as soon as your order is ready for pickup. Usually it takes less than two working days to process orders. If an item isn't in stock, we will have to order it from one of our distributors, and that will take extra time. If there is a question regarding your order, we will notify you. Why are licenses and CDs/DVDs sold separately? Licenses and CD-ROMs are sold separately because many of our customers purchase several licenses at one time, and only need one CD-ROM. The majority of the software we sell can use one CD-ROM for multiple installations. However, you must have a license for each machine you are installing the software on. In addition, some customers may only need a CD-ROM to replace one they may have lost over time. Because they already have a license, they only need to purchase the CD-ROM from us. If you are purchasing only a CD-ROM, please indicate the order number on which the license was purchased. Why is newly released software not immediately available through SLIC? As an educational institution, we are often one of the last to receive new software from manufacturers. When manufacturers announce a release date, that date is for retail, not academic institutions. Typically release dates for academic institutions are not until several weeks past the retail release date. We list new software on Spars as soon as we receive pricing and part # information, so that customers can pre-order software.
Software Licensing strives to offer software that can be used by a vast majority of faculty and staff. Unfortunately, we cannot offer every piece of software available in today's market. In the event that the software you need is not available through our office, you can e-mail us with information about the product, including: name of software, version, manufacturer, type of program (mathematical, statistical, graphical, etc), and how many people you believe are interested in purchasing it. We may look into volume licensing if the demand is high, and if we receive a good number of requests. Because we purchase products in volume, we receive substantial discounts that we are able to pass along to the customer. Therefore, we cannot take special orders for software. Purchasing only one copy would not be any less expensive than if you were to purchase it directly from the manufacturer. You may also find the software you're looking for by visiting the Campus Bookstore(s). SPARS stands for Software Procurement and Renewal System. It is a website accessible by Faculty, Staff, and Students across all Hopkins Institutions. A user's primary affiliation in JHED determines which software/pricing is visible to the user. SPARS offers many of the widely used software products at academic/volume pricing. Faculty and Staff can purchase software for their departmental use, Students can purchase software for their personal machines. Our Office hours are Monday through Friday 8am to 4pm. The window is open until 5pm for pickup only. The office is closed on all University holidays. We are located on the Homewood Campus, in the basement of Garland Hall (Suite 01A) Can I make copies of your CDs/DVDs? Typically you are not authorized to make copies of CDs/DVDs purchased from SLIC. In some cases it is permitted to make back-up copies, but please refer to the end-user license agreement located on your CD/DVD or contact us. Is support offered if I purchase software from SLIC? The majority of the software we sell DOES NOT INCLUDE SUPPORT. This allows us to sell products more inexpensively to you, but it also means that you will not be able to directly contact the company for help. For general problems, you may contact us, however, we are not set up to answer "how-to" questions. Please refer to the manufacturer's website for FAQs, knowledge base, or support articles. Can I get a license code if mine is lost? Because most of the software we sell uses volume license codes, we can give you the code if you lost it. However, you must prove that you have purchased a license for the specific version of software you need the code for. Please provide us with the following information: order number, name of person who placed the order, department, and approximate date of purchase. For software that requires an annual license, such as SPSS, and SAS, you MUST have purchased a renewal license for the current fiscal year before we can give you the installation code. We CANNOT give another code for certain products. If the code you were given is located on the back of the CD sleeve (typically on a yellow sticker), it is specific to that CD. You cannot use any other code. Do your license codes work with trial versions of software? If you downloaded a trial version of software and need a license code to activate a full version, you cannot use the codes we provide. In most cases, our license codes will not work with trial software, and we cannot give out codes if you have not purchased a license from our office. What is your Software return & exchange policy? Customers are responsible for ensuring that their computer meets specific system requirements for the software, and that they order the correct platform. Problems with installations cannot be resolved through our office. You cannot return or exchange licenses! Once the shrinkwrap is removed from CDs or other shrinkwrapped products, it cannot be returned. Unopened they can be returned within seven days. Orders are filled exactly as they appear on your Spars order. If you receive an order and there’s an error, please contact us immediately to resolve the issue. What is the difference between departmental, student/personal, and work-at-home purchases? Departmental Purchases: Faculty and staff of the Johns Hopkins Institutions only. Software must be purchased and installed on machines that are Hopkins owned. Software must be purchased by the department, not with personal funds. Orders are placed via Spars. Student/Personal Purchases: Faculty, staff, and students of the Johns Hopkins Institutions only. Software can be purchased and installed on machines that are owned by the individual. Software can be purchased in person by the individual or via Spars, and paid for with cash or check. No software will be shipped unless we’ve received the check including the shipping fee. Software may be kept by the individual even after they leave Hopkins. Work-At-Home Purchases: Faculty and staff of the Johns Hopkins Institutions only. Limited to WAH products as listed on Spars only. Software can be purchased and installed on machines that are owned by the individual, and must be used for work-related purposes only. Software must be uninstalled by the individual after they leave Hopkins. Each media is encrypted for TWO INSTALLATIONS only and has a special keycode that cannot be replaced if lost or oversubscribed. |
![[Johns Hopkins University]](/sebin/i/p/johns-hopkins-university-logo.gif){kind=logo}
![[Johns Hopkins Medicine]](/sebin/k/q/johns-hopkins-medicine-logo.gif){kind=logo}
