An Update from Project COUNTER on Hidden Metrics

Remember how Project COUNTER wanted to hear from you about hidden metrics back in October?  They’ve compiled the results from their online survey along with feedback from their face-to face focus group and international webinar, and recently published an official report of their findings called “Distributed Usage Logging: A Report on Stakeholder Demand.”

Here are a few highlights:

• All respondents are interested in going beyond basic counts of usage and having access to data on how users are actually engaging in the content.

• There is strong support for all content to have a DOI (digital object identifier) and for institutional repositories to mint them for items that do not have them.

• Demand for DUL (distributed usage logging) differs slightly, depending on whether participants are a provider or a user of the content.

• Content providers wish to have access to DUL data reports so they can clearly report to consumers a picture of total usage, across their own platforms and beyond.

• DUL usage statistics are desired by publishers to demonstrate the true value of a journal, to understand more about who is recommending particular authors, and to have access to country and article level data.

• Librarians generally discourage usage of academic sharing networks, in part due to copyright and impact reduction concerns.

• While altmetrics may not bring significant value to librarians when making collection management decisions, they are an important form of support for faculty authors and can provide consortiums with useful background information on academic engagement.

• Most are in agreement that standard usage reporting would help with the implementation of open access policy and would help simplify things across the current landscape, made up of multiple models for open access and freely available content.

• Some publishers already track open access usage for certain customers who have agreements where their license and open access publication fees are covered in the same deal.

Want more details?  Download their full report today to learn more about the respondent groups, their methodology, and to hear what your colleagues think about topics such as shared social network sites, calculating cost per use, and more!