1. A new role for COUNTER usage data in open
access agreements
UKSG 46th Annual Conference
13-15 April 2023
Breakout Group C
Laura Wong, Jisc
Opportunities and challenges

2. Outline
1. Background
2. Opportunities with COUNTER 5.1
3. Perspectives: use cases and challenges
4. Practical approaches
UKSG April 2023 - A new role for COUNTER usage data in open access
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3. Background
Factors and overview of work

4. Internal drivers
•Usage data services
•JUSP: collects institutional PR, TR, and DR from
providers and brings together
•IRUS: produces COUNTER conformant global IR
and PR for repositories and makes openly available
•Evidence-based conversations with publishers and
libraries
•Range and volume of Jisc negotiated agreements
UKSG April 2023 - A new role for COUNTER usage data in open access
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40
13
10
3
2
1
Transitional Community
based
OA community
framework
Native OA Subcribe to
Open
Green
Number of 2023 agreements by type

5. External factors
UKSG April 2023 - A new role for COUNTER usage data in open access
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• Impact on stats collectors and stats providers
• Focus on OA - opportunities
COUNTER 5.1
• Requirements
• New audience
Funder policies

6. Exploring OA usage reporting
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Done
• Engagement with strategic
groups
• Consortium usage data
included in TA dashboards
• Library interviews and
focus group
• Internal discussions
Doing
• Global usage stats:
publisher survey
and sample data
• Institutional item
reports in JUSP
Up next
• Prototype
dashboards using
global usage stats
from publishers
• Case study using
institutional
repository usage
data

7. Opportunities with COUNTER 5.1

8. A note about global and item stats
• Usage attributed to “The World” – all usage excluding robots
• May be broken down by country of use
• Platform, title, database or item reports
• All other COUNTER attributes the same
“Global
stats”
• Usage attributed to an individual article, book chapter, video
etc.
• Report and standard views, also individual items or collection
of items
“Item level
reporting”
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9. Changes in COUNTER 5.1 relevant to OA
•Improved definitions for “open”
•Focus on item reporting
•Audit for repositories
•Global and item reports recommended
•Changes make global and item reports easier to deliver
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10. Perspectives: use cases and challenges
Libraries and Jisc

11. Motivations and drivers for institutions
• Delivering value for money
• Continue to fund OA initiatives
Acquisitions
roles
• Ensuring funder compliance
• Promoting open access and engagement
Research
support roles
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12. Current practice
•Working groups and internal reporting
•Transitioning budgets
•Usage statistics used to evaluate “read”
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13. Where do usage stats fit in an OA context?
Making a case for a
deal
• What is the value or benefit to our institution in participating in this deal?
Continuing to fund OA
initiatives
• Are there global benefits to OA? Can we demonstrate that these deals are having a
positive impact towards sustainability goals?
Promoting OA to
researchers and
institution
• What is the reach of an item?
• How does usage of OA compare with subscribed?
• How is usage impacted by version, OA license, and availability status?
Increasing use • How can we improve content discovery and engagement?
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Institutional perspective

14. Where do usage stats fit in an OA context?
Meeting sector
needs
• Which titles in the publisher’s portfolio are most
important in the UK context? Which are “high value”?​
• To what extent are UK needs being met by OA
content? ​
Monitoring trends
• What are the usage trends over the last couple of years
at journal and portfolio level?
• Are we seeing more usage of open compared to closed
content?
Understanding the
landscape
• What’s the global impact of flipped journals? ​
• Where does the UK sit in the international landscape?
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Consortium perspective

15. What usage data do we need?
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There’s still interest in…
•Paywalled usage
•Usage aggregated by title or journal
•Usage aggregated by publisher
•Usage attributed to institutions
•Annual trends
But also interest in…
•Global usage of both open and paywalled content
•Total usage of open content in the UK (not just
attributed to the institution)
•Global reach and country of use

16. Challenges for libraries
1. “We don’t know what we’re doing”
2. “We don’t know what we can do”
3. “We don’t have capacity and our systems don’t make it easy”
4. “We need to put usage stats in a bigger picture”
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17. Practical approaches
Collect and connect

18. A pragmatic approach to item reports in JUSP – part 1
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Getting data in
Taking advantage of planned changes in 5.1
• Dropping components reduces size, complexity and frequency of issues.
Validating reports
• A little bit more lenient in some areas, but still rigorous where it matters.
Availability
• 60 providers in JUSP with IR. Reviewed 38 so far. 18 look good, the remainder have issues.
Types of issues
• Missing metric counts
• Missing canonical identifiers and mismatching proprietary identifiers
• Confusing relationships between Items and Parents

19. A pragmatic approach to item reports in JUSP – part 2
•Basic reporting options
•Improved search functionality
•Extended SUSHI API
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Getting data out

20. Global usage: focusing on analysis
•Engage with publishers to explore use cases
•Prototype data visualisations using publisher supplied global usage reports
•Journal level
•Quadrant analysis (with number of authors)
•Case study: Institutional repository usage stats
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Testing use cases for global usage reports

21. Summary / closing thoughts
•There is a collective need to understand and monitor transition
•COUNTER has the building blocks and is evolving to support OA
•We need to work with data in a different way
•Although we won’t see “5.1” reports for a while, there are things we can start doing now
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22. Questions?