This Glossary lists the terms relevant to the COUNTER Code of Practice, provides
a definition of each term, along with examples, where appropriate. Those definitions
specifically used in Release 2 of the Code of Practice have been extracted
and are listed in Table 1 in Section 3 of the Code of Practice itself.
For convenience, the terms listed are divided into the following broad categories:
Page views, session data and market elements.
# |
Term |
Examples/formats |
Definition |
3.1 |
Page views |
|
|
3.1.1 |
Bibliographic data |
|
|
3.1.1.1 |
Service |
Science Direct, Academic Universe, Wiley
Interscience |
A branded group of online information products
from one or more vendors that can be subscribed to/licensed and searched
as a complete service , or at a lower level (e.g. a collection). |
3.1.1.2 |
Publisher |
Wiley, Springer |
An organization whose function is to commission,
create, collect, validate, host and distribute information online and/or
in printed form |
3.1.1.3 |
Imprint |
Pergamon |
A publisher brand or division, usually dedicated
to publishing material within particular specialties and/or in specific
formats (e.g. database, journal, etc.) |
3.1.1.4 |
Serial |
|
A publication in any medium issued in successive
parts bearing numerical or chronological designations and intended to
be continued indefinitely. This definition includes periodicals, newspapers,
and annuals (reports, yearbooks, etc.); the journals, memoirs, proceeding,
transactions, etc. of societies; and numbered monographic series (NISO) |
3.1.1.5 |
Journal |
Tetrahedron Letters |
A serial that is a branded and continually
growing collection of original articles within a particular discipline |
3.1.1.6 |
Issue |
|
A collection of journal articles associated
with each other via allocation of a specific issue number and presented
as an identifiable unit online and/or as a physically bound and covered
set of numbered pages in print. |
3.1.1.7 |
Title |
Journal, Book, Reference Work |
The designation of a separate bibliographic whole, whether issued in one or several volumes, reels, discs, slides, or other parts. (NISO) |
3.1.1.8 |
Book |
|
A nonserial printed publication of any length bound in hard or soft covers or in loose-leaf format. Also called monograph. (NISO) |
3.1.1.9 |
Reference Work |
Dictionary, encyclopedia, directory, manual, guide, atlas, bibliography, index. |
An authoritative source of information about a subject: used to find quick answers to questions. |
3.1.1.10 |
Page |
|
One side of one leaf (of a book, reference work, journal, etc.) or the written or pictorial matter it contains. |
3.1.1.11 |
Section |
Chapter, entry |
The first level of subdivision of a book or reference work. |
3.1.1.12 |
Chapter |
Tetrahedron Letters |
A subdivision of a book or of some categories of reference work; usually numbered and titled. |
3.1.1.13 |
Entry |
A dictionary definition |
A record of information in some categories of reference work. |
3.1.1.14 |
Host |
Ingenta, HighWire |
An intermediary online service which stores
items that can be downloaded by the user |
3.1.1.15 |
Gateway |
SWETSwise, OCLC ECO |
An intermediary online service which does
not store the items requested by the user, and which either a) refers
these requests to a host or vendor site or service from which the items
can be downloaded by the user, or b) requests items from the vendor site
or service and delivers them to the user within the gateway environment. |
3.1.1.16 |
Vendor |
Wiley, Oxford University Press |
A publisher or other online information provider
who delivers its own licensed content to the customer and with whom the
customer has a contractual relationship |
3.1.1.17 |
Aggregator |
ProQuest, Gale, Lexis Nexis |
A type of vendor that hosts content from
multiple publishers, delivers content direct to customers and is paid
for this service by customers |
3.1.1.18 |
Database |
Social Science Abstracts |
A collection of electronically stored data
or unit records (facts, bibliographic data, texts) with a common user
interface and software for the retrieval and manipulation of data (NISO) |
3.1.1.19 |
ISBN |
|
The International Standard Book Number is a unique identifier consisting of a 10-digit code allocated to the publication; it identifies the publisher, title, edition and volume number.
|
3.1.1.20 |
Print ISSN |
Free text format (up to 13 characters in
future)
|
Unique International Standard Serial Number
assigned to the print version of a journal by the national ISSN agency
of the country from which the journal is published. Each ISSN is a unique
identifier for a specific continuing resource. ISSN are applicable to
most continuing resources, whether past, present, or to be produced in
the future, whatever the medium of production. Continuing resources are
issued over time with no predetermined conclusion. ISSN are assigned
to the entire population of serials and most integrating resources. (General
Assembly and Board of ISSN Network) |
3.1.1.21 |
Online ISSN |
Free text format (up to 13 characters in
future)
|
Unique International Standard Serial Number
assigned to the online version of a journal by the national ISSN agency
of the country from which the journal is published.(See ‘Print ISSN') |
3.1.1.22 |
DOI (Digital Object Identifier) |
|
The Digital Object Identifier is a means
of persistently identifying a piece of intellectual property (a creation)
on a digital network, irrespective of its current location (www.doi.org) |
3.1.1.23 |
Volume |
Alpha-numeric, no leading zeros |
Numbered collection of a minimum of one journal
issue ; in printed form, volumes of more than one issue are not normally
bound together by the publisher, but are frequently bound together in
hardback by the purchasing library to aid preservation of the printed
product. Books: Numbered collection of articles, chapters, or entries that is part of a larger, multi-volume work, either published together or serially. |
3.1.1.24
|
Year |
|
Year in which an article, item, issue or
volume is first published in any medium |
3.1.1.25
|
Issue date |
dd-mm-yyyy;dd=1, if monthly or less frequent |
The date of release by the publisher to customers
of a journal issue |
3.1.1.26 |
Collection |
Science Direct Backfiles |
A subset of the content of a service; a collection
is a branded group of online information products from one or more vendors
that can be subscribed to/licensed and searched as a complete group. |
3.1.2 |
Web Page type |
|
|
3.1.2.1 |
Item |
Full text article, TOC, Abstract, Database
record |
A uniquely identifiable piece of published
work that may be original or a digest or a review of other published
work. PDF, Postscript and HTML formats of the same full text article
(for example), will be counted as separate items. |
3.1.2.2 |
Full-Content Unit |
|
Journals: article
Books: Minimum requestable unit, which may be the entire book or a section thereof.
Reference Works: content unit appropriate to resource (eg dictionary definitions, encyclopedia articles, biographies, etc)
Non-textual resources: file type as appropriate to resource (eg image, audio, video, etc) (ICOLC)
|
3.1.2.3 |
Article |
|
An item of original written work published in a journal, other serial publication, or in a book. An article is complete in itself, but usually cites other relevant published works in its list of references, if it has one.
|
3.1.2.4 |
TOC (Table of Contents) |
|
Journals: A list of all articles published in a journal issue.
Books and reference works: a list of all articles or chapters published in the book or reference work.
|
3.1.2.5 |
Abstract |
|
A short summary of the content of an article,
always including its conclusions |
3.1.2.6 |
Article header |
|
That subsection of an article which includes
the following information: publisher; journal title, volume, issue and
page numbers; copyright information; list of names
and affiliations of the authors; author organization addresses; title
and abstract (where present) of the article; keywords (where present) |
3.1.2.7 |
Full-text article |
|
The complete text, including all references,
figures and tables, of an article, plus links to any supplementary material
published with it. |
3.1.2.7.1 |
HTML |
|
Article formatted in HTML so as to be readable
by a web browser |
3.1.2.7.2 |
PDF |
|
Article formatted in portable document format
so as to be readable via the Adobe Acrobat reader; tends to replicate
online the appearance of an article as it would appear in printed page
form |
3.1.2.7.3 |
Postscript |
|
Article formatted in Postscript for faithful
output via printer |
3.1.2.8 |
References |
|
A list of works referred to in an article,
giving sufficient detail to enable the identification and location of
each work |
3.1.2.9 |
Database record |
|
An individual record in a standard format,
the collection of which in a form that can be processed by a computer
constitutes a database |
3.1.2.10 |
Search |
|
A specific intellectual query, typically
equated to submitting the search form of the online service to the server
(EBSCO, abridged) |
3.1.2.11 |
Item requests |
|
Number of items requested by users as a result
of a search . User requests include viewing, downloading, emailing and
printing of items, where this activity can be recorded and controlled
by the server rather than the browser. Turnaways will also be counted.
(See 3.1.5.4) |
3.1.2.12 |
Successful request |
|
For web-server logs successful requests are
those with specific return codes, as defined by NCSA |
3.1.2.13 |
Link-out |
|
Linking from one online resource to another. The act of clicking the link and moving to a page on another site. Generally used to measure activity for library-configurable links as might be found in a link server. The domain name of the target of the link in the transaction to be recorded. (EBSCO). |
3.1.2.14 |
Link-in |
|
Direct access to resources on the site that are a result of the user clicking a link on another site. The domain name of the site where the link originated to be recorded. (EBSCO) |
3.1.3 |
How user is authenticated |
|
|
3.1.3.1 |
Username and password |
|
No definition required |
3.1.3.2 |
IP address |
The IP address seen by the primary service-this
may be the real end-user's IP or a proxy IP. This is always recorded,
even if the authentication is not via IP address |
IP address of the computer on which the session
is conducted |
3.1.3.3 |
Customer-authenticated user |
Referring URL, Athens |
User authentication is provided by a referring
service that has an agreement with the online resource that allows the
referring services own users access to the online resource |
3.1.4 |
Access rights |
|
Rights for using a vendor's online collection
or database defined by law, license, or other contractual and/or co-operative
agreement. (NISO) |
3.1.4.1 |
Access granted |
Yes/no |
User is granted access to the online collection
or database, or subsets thereof, subject to the access rights specified
in the agreement with the vendor |
3.1.4.2 |
Session |
|
A successful request of an online service.
It is one cycle of user activities that typically starts when a user
connects to the service or database and ends by terminating activity
that is either explicit (by leaving the service through exit or
logout) or implicit (timeout due to user inactivity) (NISO) |
3.1.4.3 |
Timeout |
|
Automatic termination of a session due to
a period of user inactivity. The average timeout setting would be 30
minutes. If another timeout period is used this should be reported. (NISO) |
3.1.4.4
|
Turnaway (Rejected session) |
|
A turnaway (rejected session) is defined
as an unsuccessful log-in to an electronic service due to exceeding the
simultaneous user limit allowed by the licence
|
3.2 |
Session data |
|
|
3.2.1 |
Start time |
Yyyy-mm-dd-hh-mn-ss |
Records the time a user's session begins
(first login or IP authentication), to the nearest second, using UTC
(Co-ordinated Universal Time, formerly GMT) |
3.2.2 |
End time |
Yyyy-mm-dd-hh-mn-ss |
Records the time a user's session ends or
timeouts, to the nearest second, using UTC (Co-ordinated Universal Time,
formerly GMT) |
3.2.3 |
Duration |
|
Records the time a user's session lasts,
to the nearest second |
3.3 |
Market elements |
|
|
3.3.1 |
Customer |
|
An individual or organization that pays a vendor for access to a specified range of the vendor's services and/or content and is subject to terms and conditions agreed with the vendor.
|
3.3.2 |
Subscriber |
|
An individual or organization that pays a
vendor in advance for access to a specified range of the vendor's services
and/or content for a pre-determined period of time and subject to terms
and conditions agreed with the vendor. |
3.3.3 |
Licensee |
|
= Subscriber (see 3.3.2 above) |
3.3.4 |
Consortium |
Ohiolink |
The consortium through which the institution
or user obtained online access. A consortium is defined by a range of
IP addresses that may be in specific groupings (e.g. institutes) |
3.3.5 |
Consortium member |
Ohio State University |
A university, hospital or other institute
that has obtained access for its users to online information resources
as part of a consortium. A consortium member is defined by a subset of
the Consortium's range of IP addresses. |
3.3.6 |
IP address |
|
See 3.1.4.2 above |
3.3.7 |
User |
|
An individual with the right to access the
online resource, usually provided by their institution, and conduct a
session |
3.3.8 |
Onsite usage |
|
Computer being used to access the online
resource is within a building or on the campus of an institution (EBSCO) |
3.3.9 |
Remote usage |
|
Computer being used is off-campus, or away
from the Institution's property, e.g. access by a user from home |