THE VALUE OF
COUNTER DATA
to content and
platform providers
Case Study
CONTENTS
COUNTER AND RELEASE 5 3
THE VALUE OF COUNTER DATA 4
1. Standardised data to support evidence-based communication and decision making . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2. Data to Support Customers’ Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3. Business Intelligence, Product and Sales Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
CONTRIBUTORS 8
THE VALUE OF
COUNTER DATA
TO CONTENT AND
PLATFORM PROVIDERS
In this case study, a variety of content and platform providers gave their feedback on COUNTER data
and the value it adds.
COUNTER AND RELEASE 5
Release 5 (the current version of the COUNTER Code of Practice) includes four Master Reports.
The reports a publisher needs to provide depends on their Host Type (i.e. the type of content they
host). Master Reports cover a wide spectrum of activities. For ease of use, each of the Master Reports
has one or more pre-set Standard Views that summarises particular types of activity, such as us-
age or access denials. All types of publishers provide their customers with Platform Master Reports,
which show activity across all metrics for their entire platforms.
Release 5 of the COUNTER Code of Practice is designed to ensure a level playing field, regardless of the
technologies, UX designs, or platforms that providers use to deliver their content. For example, some
platforms take the user directly to the HTML, and in Release 4, this could lead to higher counts than for
platforms that would take the user to an abstract before they would view the HTML or download a PDF.
Some publishers choose to implement COUNTER themselves whilst others find economies of scale
through using a third-party service, such as Scholarly iQ.
3
THE VALUE OF COUNTER DATA
COUNTER offers a range of benefits to platform and content providers, regardless of size or content.
1. Standardised data to support evidence-based communication and
decision making
The COUNTER Code of practice and audit processes ensure that COUNTER data is consistent and
reliable across platforms:
As providers are regularly audited, there is a regular third-party check and verification
to ensure that consistency is assured across providers and over time. It is not just a self-
certification, which may otherwise be open to misuse and misrepresentation.
Most of our customers understand and use COUNTER data, and where they don’t, it is useful
to direct them to COUNTER as the standard we work to. Increasingly, those regions who
were not as versed in COUNTER are becoming more aware.
In managing library resources in today’s exploding world of information, independent
usage reporting is critical in demonstrating content value. The COUNTER Code of Practice
and audit processes ensures that libraries receive trusted, consistent, credible, and
comparable usage statistics.
It is useful to have a standard to compare traffic across several platforms.
Some organisations specifically commented on the value of COUNTER data in supporting commu-
nication with their customers:
We prefer to use COUNTER data because it is reliable - we understand it. I always use
COUNTER data, where available, to report to our board, editors, to the society, and
internally to see what bits of content are being used or which are more popular.
It is helpful to use the same usage criteria as universities because it enables you to act
proactively. For example, you can track total user engagements at universities to see if you
need to contact an instructor and see why they’re not using the tool.
THE VALUE OF COUNTER DATA TO CONTENT AND PLATFORM PROVIDERS
4
COUNTER data can also assist clients when trialling new products and resources:
I utilise COUNTER from the sales and marketing point of view and working with academic
research libraries… When we do trials for new customers… COUNTER data helps them get
word out to the student body and professors and see, where needed, that what they buy is
based on greatest usage.
When a customer is trialling a product, we monitor the usage to support and promote the trial.
The COUNTER Release 5 reports provide flexibility to look at data in detail or at a high level to suit
varying requirements:
The COUNTER Release 5 standard has greater reporting flexibility than ever with further
insights on metrics, such as investigations and unique title or item counts. This is vital in taking
a more informed look at the resources a library has acquired in these cost-conscious times.
2. Data to Support Customers’ Requirements
Generally, librarians and other clients expect to be provided with consistent and reliable data to
inform monitoring, evaluation, and decision-making. COUNTER data provides this:
Customers do expect COUNTER stats, for sure… There are some states in USA, North and
South Carolina - if you don’t offer COUNTER statistics you cannot sell to them. They will not
buy from you unless they can review their COUNTER statistics.
COUNTER data is established as a common, agreed industry standard, providing scrutiny
and review from clients’ peers in its value and application.
Some organisations commented on how library clients appreciated the ease of obtaining COUNTER
statistics:
We have an admin panel for each organisation, so librarians can access usage statistics
anytime and with a few clicks. We also use SUSHI, so the librarians can fully automate the
collection process without the need to go into each different system.
It is key to provide convenient and eye-catching information and links for easy access
to COUNTER via the publisher’s Administrator Page for each library - this is the one stop
location for all your librarians’ activities.
THE VALUE OF COUNTER DATA TO CONTENT AND PLATFORM PROVIDERS
5
JSTOR’s COUNTER reporting interface is one of our most highly rated admin services. Users
know what to expect, and as long as you follow good UX practices, they are typically happy
with the experience of getting COUNTER data.
In addition to meeting individual clients’ expectations, COUNTER data supports organisations in
meeting usage data requirements in consortium licence agreements and tenders.
COUNTER is an important feature in tenders. Without COUNTER compliant usage, you
would not be considered for most tenders.
3. Business Intelligence, Product and Sales Support
COUNTER Release 5 provides data on controlled usage, as well as Gold Open Access (GOA). This can
be an important feature of the COUNTER Release 5 data, enabling content and platform providers
to look at the proportion of open access vs controlled use across their portfolio and identify changes
over time.
More recently, one of the projects we have been doing is evaluating Gold Open Access vs
controlled usage. This is definitely a plus point that has come out of R5. We will also use it
as a start for transition agreements.
Some content and platform providers have developed, or are exploring, other services and func-
tionality that can combine and incorporate COUNTER Release 5 data. Having a standard, consistent
measure of usage for such developments was considered important:
It’s like using the COUNTER metric as the trusted currency but working with it in a different
way. COUNTER metrics provide a trusted quantitative measurement, which can deliver
more value through expanding the parameters or values for which it was used, or by using
with other qualitative metrics.
COUNTER data can be combined with other data to explore trends over time and even to make
predictions:
The nice thing about COUNTER data is you’ve got performance data for a period and can
see what’s trended over time… As such, if you’ve got data over time and can interpret
those trends, you have prediction potential to see patterns. AI and predictive modelling
need reliable, consistent metrics and I think that that’s where COUNTER comes into this,
because we’re dealing with something that we know what it is, rather than its hits or views
or whatever else that may not be the same for everyone.
THE VALUE OF COUNTER DATA TO CONTENT AND PLATFORM PROVIDERS
6
The development of the COUNTER Code of Practice has resulted in reliable and consistent usage
data, which can provide the “groundwork” for other data driven services:
If you’re a publisher, and you’re publishing content, and you’re tracking all that
engagement for it, you’re the custodian of that data. Why would you not want that data to
be as rich as it could possibly be? Particularly if it’s trusted data that’s audited.
Data driven business intelligence is a top priority for the business, and we are in the process
of bringing together a large number of customer data sources, COUNTER usage data being
one of them, to drive this going forwards.
COUNTER data is beneficial in supporting the sales process and package selection:
Our sales team will review the COUNTER usage reports before beginning sales or renewal
discussions with customers.
Sales side is to look at usage, we look at turnaways to see if there are any other journals in
our packages getting attempted usage that might provide other opportunities.
THE VALUE OF COUNTER DATA TO CONTENT AND PLATFORM PROVIDERS
7
CONTRIBUTORS
We are grateful for the following organisations who provided feedback:
Bioscientifica
https://www.bioscientifica.com/
Bioscientifica exists to support biomedicine. Through their expertise in publishing, events and as-
sociation management, they strengthen biomedical communities to advance science and health.
Bioscientifica is owned by the Society for Endocrinology, and all their profits are redistributed to
support biomedical research and practice.
BMJ
bmj.com/company
As a global healthcare knowledge provider, BMJ publishes one of the world’s most cited general
medical journals, The BMJ, and over 70 specialty journals. The company also offers digital profes-
sional development courses and clinical decision support tools to help health professionals im-
prove the quality of healthcare delivery.
BMJ work with a strong vision of a healthier world, which defines them as an organisation. They
hope that vision resonates with you, and that you choose to join them in working towards a health-
ier world for all.
ITHAKA/JSTOR
https://ithaka.org/
https://www.jstor.org/
ITHAKA helps to make higher education and access to knowledge more affordable. They improve
outcomes for students and researchers, and they preserve knowledge for future generations. JSTOR
is an ITHAKA service that provides journals, books, images, and primary sources on a platform for
teaching and connecting ideas.
OpenEdition
https://www.openedition.org/
OpenEdition is a portal of electronic resources in the humanities and social sciences.
Scholarly IQ
https://scholarlyiq.com/
SiQ supports over 175,000 librarian reporting users, including over 9,000 SUSHI accounts, and pro-
cesses over 150 million page views per month for COUNTER reporting customers. SiQ is currently
the only fully audited, compliant, independent provider of COUNTER reporting services with a com-
prehensive suite of wholly owned and developed solutions for COUNTER reporting. SiQ has over
18 years extensive experience of both academic publishing, and data management and analytics.
THE VALUE OF COUNTER DATA TO CONTENT AND PLATFORM PROVIDERS
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This unique blend has enabled SiQ to build a team of industry leading professionals who deliver the
business support, data management knowledge, and COUNTER expertise required to fully support
vendor and client requirements.
Social Explorer
https://www.socialexplorer.com/
Social Explorer allows users to visualise and interact with data, create maps, charts, reports, and
downloads. Users can explore hundreds of thousands of built-in data indicators related to demog-
raphy, economy, health, politics, environment, crime and more.
Unlimited Priorities
https://www.unlimitedpriorities.com/
Unlimited Priorities® provides support services to organisations operating within the information
arena, including publishers, scholarly societies, libraries, trade associations, museums, and histor-
ical societies.
THE VALUE OF COUNTER DATA TO CONTENT AND PLATFORM PROVIDERS
9
This case study was written and produced by Pete Dalton at Evidence Base, Birmingham City University
working on behalf of JUSP at Jisc.
Copyright © 2022 COUNTER
This case study is published by COUNTER in 2022
25 Egbert Road, Winchester, SO23 7EB
Text by Pete Dalton
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