UKSG Conference, 29th-31st March, 2004. Workshop – Using COUNTER statistics

Using COUNTER statistics: a practical perspective

Simon Bevan, Cranfield University

Louise Jones, University of Leicester

UKSG Conference, 29th-31st March, 2004. Workshop – Using COUNTER statistics

Workshop outline

• Aims of COUNTER

• COUNTER reports

• Role of pilot sites

• Lessons learnt..

• Discussion

• Librarian Toolkit

• Summary

UKSG Conference, 29th-31st March, 2004. Workshop – Using COUNTER statistics

Cranfield & Leicester• Cranfield

– 3 campuses; c3,500 students; 88% postgraduate; – Engineering, biosciences, management, manufacturing– Access to over 6000 e-journals– Use 12 COUNTER compliant vendors– Pilot site for E-measures study

• Leicester– 19,500 registered students; 7,000 distance learning– Sciences, humanities, law, medicine, social sciences,

engineering, management, education– Access to over 7800 e-journals– Use 18 COUNTER compliant vendors

UKSG Conference, 29th-31st March, 2004. Workshop – Using COUNTER statistics

Aims of COUNTER• It is widely agreed by producers and purchasers of information that

the use of these resources should be measured in a more consistent way. Librarians want to understand better how the information they buy from a variety of sources is being used; publishers want to know how the information products they disseminate are being accessed. An essential requirement to meet these objectives is an agreed international Code of Practice governing the recording and exchange of online usage data. COUNTER has developed just such a Code of Practice.

• COUNTER has been developed to provide a single, international, extendible Code of Practice that allows the usage of online information products and services to be measured in a credible, consistent and compatible way using vendor-generated data.

Vendor  JR1  JR2  DB1  DB2  DB3  JR3  JR4

 Allen Press  Yes          No  No

 Annual Reviews  Yes        Yes  Yes  No

 Atypon Systems  Yes        Yes  Yes  No

 BioOne  Yes          No  No

 Blackwell Publishing  Yes        Yes  No  No

 EBSCO Publishing  Yes    Yes  Yes  Yes  No  No

 Elsevier-ScienceDirect  Yes    Yes    Yes  No  No

 Emerald Group Publishing  Yes          No  No

 Extenza  Yes          No  No

 Geological Society of America  Yes          No  No

 HighWire Press  Yes  Yes  Yes  Yes  Yes  Yes  Yes

 Ingenta  Yes        No  No  No

 ISI      Yes  Yes  No  No  No

 MetaPress  Yes          No  No

 Nature Publishing Group  Yes          Yes  Yes

 Oxford University Press  Yes          No  No

 Portland Press  No          Yes  No

 ProQuest Information & Learning  Yes  Yes  Yes  Yes  Yes  No  No

 Public Library of Science  Yes          No  No

 Swets Blackwell  Yes          Yes  Yes

 Thomson Learning/Gale  Yes ( zero usage not reported)    Yes  Yes  Yes  No  No

 Wiley  Yes          No  No

UKSG Conference, 29th-31st March, 2004. Workshop – Using COUNTER statistics

COUNTER reports

• JR1 = Journal Report 1: Number of Successful Full-Text Article Requests by Month and Journal

• JR2 = Journal Report 2: Turnaways by Month and Journal

• DB1 = Database Report 1: Total Searches and Sessions by Month and Database

• DB2 = Database Report 2: Turnaways by Month and Database • DB3 = Database Report 3: Total Searches and Sessions by Month

and Service

• JR3 = Number of Successful Item Requests and Turnaways by Month, Journal and Page Type

• JR4 = Total Searches Run by Month and Service

UKSG Conference, 29th-31st March, 2004. Workshop – Using COUNTER statistics

UKSG Conference, 29th-31st March, 2004. Workshop – Using COUNTER statistics

Role of pilot sites

1. Definitions of terms used in the COUNTER CoP• Clear, appropriate, omissions

2. Usage reports• Merging, content, format, delivery, additional

reports

UKSG Conference, 29th-31st March, 2004. Workshop – Using COUNTER statistics

Format & delivery

• Definitions: do the terms used in the usage reports work for you? • As far as you can tell, are the vendors adhering to these definitions?• Format: do they conform exactly to the specification for that report in

section 4.1 of the Code of Practice?• Delivery: are the reports available on a password-controlled website• Delivery: are the reports provided as a CSV file, a Microsoft Excel file,

or as a file that can be imported into Microsoft Excel?• Frequency: are the reports updated monthly? Are the updates

available within four weeks of the end of the reporting period?• Alerting: are you offered an email alert when the new monthly report is

available?

UKSG Conference, 29th-31st March, 2004. Workshop – Using COUNTER statistics

Ease of manipulation• What do you use the reports for?

• Are there internal metrics that you create or plan to create using the data from these reports?

• Is it easy to extract and analyse data from the reports?

• How easy is it to merge data from the same report from different vendors?

• We are considering the creation of a librarian toolkit that should facilitate the automatic consolidation of usage data from different vendor sites. How would such a toolkit be useful to you?

UKSG Conference, 29th-31st March, 2004. Workshop – Using COUNTER statistics

Lessons learnt…

• Double counting full-text

• Complexity of some COUNTER reports

• Publishers/aggregators/Athens– Different figures to be added

• Other issues reported from pilot