The Role of COUNTER
David Sommer
JIBS User Group 2009
Background
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Understanding usage
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Usage statistics
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Different approaches
Role of usage statistics
Should enlighten rather than obscure
Should be practical
Should be reliable
Are only part of the story
Should be used in context
COUNTER
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Current status
Future directions
Why COUNTER?
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Goal: credible, compatible, consistent
publisher/vendor-generated statistics for the global
information community
Libraries and consortia need online usage statistics
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To assess the value of different online products/services
To support collection development
To plan infrastructure
Publishers need online usage statistics
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To experiment with new pricing models
To assess the relative importance of the different channels
by which information reaches the market
To provide editorial support
To plan infrastructure
COUNTER
Codes of Practice
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Definitions of terms used
Specifications for Usage Reports
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What they should include
What they should look like
How and when they should be delivered
Data processing guidelines
Auditing
Compliance
Maintenance and development of the Code of
Practice
Governance of COUNTER
COUNTER: current Codes of Practice
1) Journals and databases
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Release 1 Code of Practice launched January 2003
Release 2 published April 2005 replacing Release 1 in January 2006
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Now a widely adopted standard by publishers and librarians
100+ vendors now compliant
15000+ journals now covered
Librarians use it in collection development decisions
Publishers use it in marketing to prove ‘value’
Release 3 published August 2008, implemented by 31 August 2009
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2 vendors already compliant: HighWire Press, MPS Technologies
2) Books and reference works
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Release 1 Code of Practice launched March 2006
13 vendors now compliant
Relevant usage metrics less clear than for journals
Different issues than for journals
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Direct comparisons between books less relevant
Understanding how different categories of book are used is more
relevant
Code of Practice for Journals and Databases:
Release 3 – main features
SUSHI protocol incorporated into R3
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Usage Reports must be provided in XML as well as in Excel
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Vendors providing journal archives as a separate acquisition must
report usage of these in a separate report
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Search and Session activity generated by federated search engines and
automated search agents must be reported separately
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New library consortium usage reports, in XML only
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Activity generated by internet robots, crawlers, etc. must be excluded
form the COUNTER reports
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A new optional additional report that enables usage of journals and
books available on the same platform to be included in the same
COUNTER report
Release 3 is available at http://www.projectcounter.org/code_practice.html
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Journal and Database Code of
Practice: Release 3
Usage Reports
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Consortium Report 1 (XML only)
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Consortium Report 2 (XML only)
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Total searches and sessions by month and database
Database Report 2
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Turnaways by month and journal
Database Report 1
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Full-text article requests by year-of-publication and journal
Journal Report 2
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Full text article requests from an archive by month and journal
Journal Report 5
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Full text article requests by month and journal
Journal Report 1a
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Total searches by month and database
Journal Report 1
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Successful full-text journal article or book chapter requests by month
Turnaways by month and database
Database Report 3
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Searches and sessions by month and service
SUSHI
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Standardized Usage Statistics Harvesting Initiative (SUSHI)
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No mechanism existed for automatically retrieving, combining, and
storing COUNTER usage data from different sources
NISO-sponsored XML-based SUSHI provides a means to do just
this, via a standard model for machine to machine automation of
statistics harvesting.
COUNTER and NISO have worked together to develop the SUSHI
protocol. More details of SUSHI can be found at:-
http://www.niso.org/committees/SUSHI/SUSHI_comm.html
SUSHI: Objectives
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COUNTER statistics provides an excellent model and rules
for usage statistics counting
Librarians needed:
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A more efficient data exchange model
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Current model is file-by-file spreadsheet download
Background query and response model is more
efficient and scalable
SUSHI: What it is and Isn’t
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What it is:
 A web-services model for
requesting data
 Replaces the user’s
need to download files
from vendor’s website
 A request for data where
the response includes
COUNTER data
 Using COUNTER’s
schema
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What it isn’t:
 A model for counting
usage statistics
 A usage consolidation
application
Why COUNTER and SUSHI are important
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For libraries and publishers
 Usage statistics are being used to inform
decisions
 They need to be consistent, credible and
comparable =
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And, easy to obtain =
SUSHI
Summary
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COUNTER provides the consistency and credibility
ERM Systems/Usage Consolidation service provide the tools for
more effective consolidation and reporting of usage data
SUSHI acts as an enabling technology by allowing Usage Consolidation
modules to automate the harvesting of COUNTER reports
Release 3 of COUNTER Codes of Practice, will turn the theory and
promise of these systems into reality by making make SUSHI support a
requirement for compliance.
Future challenges
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Improving/extending the Codes of Practice
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Reliability ( audit, federated searches,)
Usability (number of compliant vendors, XML format, additional
usage reports)
Database usage reports
Additional data (year of publication, individual article usage data)
Usage statistics for Institutional Repositories
Categories of content/activity
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Online publications are more than collections of articles
How to reflect the value provided by other features
Deriving metrics from the Codes of Practice
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Journals (cost per use, Usage Factor)
Databases?
Books?
Deriving metrics from COUNTERcompliant usage statistics
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Local metrics
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For libraries and library consortia
At journal, collection and publisher level
To compare the cost-effectiveness of journal subscriptions
To assess the value of Big Deals
Global metrics
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For authors, funding agencies, libraries and publishers
At journal, collection and publisher level
To compare quality and value
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Usage Factor project
PIRUS project
COUNTER: ‘global’ metrics
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Impact Factor
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Well-established, easily understood and accepted
Endorsed by funding agencies and researchers
Does not cover all fields of scholarship
Reflects value of journals to researchers
Over-emphasis on IF distorts the behaviour of authors
Over-used, mis-used and over-interpreted
Usage Factor
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Usage-based alternative perspective
Would cover all online journals
Would reflect value of journals to all categories of user
Would be easy to understood
Basis for Usage Factor
A possible basis for the calculation of Usage factor
could be COUNTER Journal Report 1: Number of
Successful Full-text Article Requests by Month and
Journal
Usage Factor =
Total usage (COUNTER JR1 data for a specified period)
Total articles published online (for a specified period)
Usage Factor
Objective: Assess the feasibility of developing and implementing journal
Usage Factors
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Stage 1
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Level of support from author, librarian and publisher communities
Data from which UF would be derived
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Factors in the calculation
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Level of reporting
Total usage
Articles?
Report submitted in May 2007
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COUNTER Journal Report 1?
Article numbers
Process for consolidation, calculation and reporting of UFs
Find at http://www.uksg.org/usagefactors
Stage 2:
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Test approach and methodology on real publisher usage data
RFP to be circulated in mid-2009
Usage Factor: Stage 1 feedback
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Are the COUNTER usage statistics sufficiently robust?
Frustration at lack of comparable, quantitative data on journals
Should items covered by restricted to articles?
Many journals still have significant usage in print
Diversity of views on the factors in the calculation
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Specified usage period
Specified publication period
Usage data is more susceptible to manipulation
Will the journal be a meaningful concept in the future?
Two measures with different limitations are better than one, and UF
will be derived from a set of credible, understandable data
Usage data will be used as a measure of value, whether publishers like
it or not
Stage 2:Preparing and harmonising data
for analysis
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Journal usage data from multiple publishers
to be ingested and analysed by expert third
party
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6 publishers
1 aggregator
1 hosting service
All interested in the insights to be gained
from contributing data to the project
Key Data Issues
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Consistency – numerator/denominator
Defining article usage year
Defining article publication date
Different usage patterns by subject
Report specification
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With key data issues addressed, we
have developed a specification for the
report via which participating publishers
will transfer their usage data to the
appointed third party for analysis
Data Analysis and Modelling
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Using the data provided, the appointed
contractor will produce a report which will:
Outline the various metrics assessed
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Recommend which of them prove consistent and robust
enough to be adopted for scaled up onward monitoring
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Suggest any ways in which data providers might amend the
way they capture, structure, label, and maintain their data
which would make the measurement of Usage Factors: Easier
 More reliable
Propose ways to audit Usage Factors for accuracy
Usage Factor Project
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More information at:
http://www.uksg.org/usagefactors
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Or contact:Richard Gedye
richard.gedye@oxfordjournals.org
PIRUS
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Publisher and Institutional Repository Usage Statistics
A COUNTER Project
Sponsored by JISC through the
PALS Metadata and Interoperability
programme (phase 3)
Further information and full report:
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/pals3/pir
us.aspx
Increasing interest in article level usage
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More journal articles hosted by Institutional and other
Repositories
Authors and funding agencies are increasingly interested
in a reliable, global overview of usage of individual articles
Online usage becoming an alternative, accepted measure
of article and journal value
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Knowledge Exchange report recommends developing standards for
usage reporting at the individual article level
Usage-based metrics being considered as a tool for use in the UK
Research Excellence Framework and elsewhere.
Article usage metrics now more practical
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Implementation by COUNTER of XML-based
usage reports makes more granular reporting
of usage a practical proposition
Implementation by COUNTER of the SUSHI
protocol facilitates the automated
consolidation of usage data from different
sources.
The challenge
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An article may be available from:
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The main journal web site
Ovid
ProQuest
PubMed Central
Authors’ local Institutional Repositories
If we want to assess article impact by
counting usage, how can we maximise the
actual usage that we capture?
PIRUS Project Mission
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To develop a global standard to enable
the recording, reporting and
consolidation of online usage statistics
for individual journal articles hosted by
Institutional Repositories, Publishers
and other entities
PIRUS Project Aims
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Develop COUNTER-compliant usage reports
at the individual article level
Create guidelines which, if implemented,
would enable any entity that hosts online
journal articles to produce these reports
Propose ways in which these reports might be
consolidated at a global level in a standard
way.
PIRUS Outputs
A proof-of-concept COUNTERcompliant XML prototype for an
individual article usage report
1.
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Can be used by both repositories and
publishers
PIRUS outputs
2. A tracker code, to be implemented by
repositories that sends a message to
either:
 an external party that is responsible for
creating and consolidating usage
statistics and for forwarding them to
the relevant publisher for consolidation
 The local repository server
PIRUS outputs
Step 1: a fulltext article is downloaded
3.
Step 2: tracker code invoked, generating an OpenURL log entry
Scenario A
Step A1: OpenURL log entries
sent to external party responsible
for creating and consolidating the
usage statistics
Step A2: logs filtered by
COUNTER rules
Step A3: COUNTER-compliant
usage statistics collected and
collated per article (DOI) in XML
format
Step A4: COUNTER compliant
usage statistics available from
central organization to authorized
parties
Scenario B
Scenario C
Step B1: OpenURL log entry sent
to local server
Step C1: OpenURL log entry sent
to local server
Step B2: OpenURL log entries
harvested by external party
responsible for creating and
consolidating usage statistics
Step C2: logs filtered by
COUNTER rules
Step B3: logs filtered by
COUNTER rules
Step B4: COUNTER-compliant
usage statistics collected and
collated per article (DOI) in XML
format
Step B5: COUNTER compliant
usage statistics available from
central organization to authorized
parties
Step C3: COUNTER-compliant
usage statistics collected and
collated per article (DOI) in XML
format
Step C4: COUNTER compliant
usage statistics available from IR to
authorized parties
PIRUS outputs
4. Specification for the criteria for a a
central facility that will create the usage
statistics where required or collect and
consolidate the usage statistics
COUNTER Membership
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Member Categories and Annual Fees (2009)
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Publishers/intermediaries: $850
Library Consortia: $560
Libraries: $425
Industry organization: $425
Library affiliate: $170 (non-voting member)
Benefits of full membership
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Owner of COUNTER with voting rights at annual
general meeting, etc.
Regular bulletins on progress
Opportunity to receive advice on implementation
Vendors: no compliance fee; reduced price audit
fees
http://www.projectcounter.org
Apply for COUNTER
membership
For more information……….
http://www.projectcounter.org
Thank you!
Peter Shepherd, COUNTER
pshepherd@projectcounter.org