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News and ActivitiesLast updated: April 2012UKSG Usage Statistics Training SeminarsThe course is to be held in Dublin on 30th May 2012 and another in Oxford on 11th September (booking not yet open). Full details and course booking can be found at: http://www.uksg.org/event/USTS300512 Course summary This one-day training seminar will give a practical introduction to accessing, collating, utilising, presenting and marketing e-resource usage statistics. Experts from different sectors will provide their perspectives on the role and importance of usage statistics. Future developments in the provision and exploitation of usage statistics will also be covered. There will also be the opportunity to gain some guided hands-on experience with manipulating usage data, including:
A workbook and sample Excel spreadsheets will be available pre-loaded on a USB memory stick for attendees to use during the day, and also to take away for practice afterwards. In order to allow participants hands-on experience at this training seminar attendance will be limited to 30. Course level and previous knowledge required Those attending would usually have some experience of the practical management of e-journals, e-books or databases. NB: In order to get most benefit from the hands-on session, participants should have a basic working knowledge of Microsoft Excel: advanced knowledge is not required. Learning objectives
At only £175 for members and £225 for non members, this course provides excellent value for money. Making COUNTER more accessible for smaller publishersWith over 130 vendors providing COUNTER-compliant usage reports, and more than 70 vendor members, COUNTER enjoys widespread support among publishers. We would like to extend the reach of COUNTER still further, and have launched two new initiatives to make it easier for smaller publishers to become not only COUNTER members, but also to become COUNTER compliant. These are first, the new Smaller Publisher COUNTER member price, and second, financial support towards the cost of the COUNTER audit for smaller, not-for-profit publishers. New Smaller Publisher COUNTER member price From 2011, publishers with annual revenues of less than £6.5 million/US$10 million will be able to become full members of COUNTER for an annual fee of £360/US$540, a 35% reduction on the standard vendor member price. Further information on this price, together with an online membership application form, may be found on the COUNTER website. at: http://www.projectcounter.org Financial support for the COUNTER audit Not-for-profit publishers who are COUNTER members and who also meet the Smaller Publisher member criteria will be eligible for a financial subsidy of £1,000/US$1,500 from COUNTER towards the cost of their first annual COUNTER audit. This subsidy will be made available to the first 10 not-for-profit smaller publishers who become newly COUNTER compliant in 2011. For further information on these initiatives, please contact Peter Shepherd, Project Director - COUNTER at pshepherd@projectCounter.org New Release of the COUNTER Code of Practice: objectives, timetable and process for developmentIt is now almost 3 years since publication of Release 3 of the COUNTER Code of Practice for Journals and Databases. Continuing changes in technology, as well as in the way articles and other relevant content is presented and accessed online, mean that it is now timely to upgrade this Code of Practice. Rather than restrict the new Release to Journals and Databases, it is planned to extend its coverage to incorporate Books and Reference works, which until now have had a separate Code of Practice. The basic principles on which the existing Codes of Practice are built, including the rules for processing and filtering the raw usage data, will, however, remain. The following overall objectives have been set for Release 4: the Books and Reference Works Code will be integrated with the Journals and Databases Code to create a single, unified Code covering all categories of content, including multimedia content; the functionality of XML and SUSHI will be more fully developed and exploited in the design of the usage reports; the implications of the PIRUS2 and Journal Usage Factor projects will be taken into consideration. The aim is to publish the definitive version of Release 4 in early 2012, with implementation by vendors required by 31 December 2013. To achieve this, COUNTER will work to the following timetable:
Both the existing Release 3 of the Code of Practice for Journals and Databases and the existing Release 1 of the Code of Practice for Books and Reference Works will remain valid until December 31 2013. Suggestions for Release 4 should be submitted by email, before Tuesday 31 May 2011, to:
Project Director - COUNTER pshepherd@projectCounter.org Forthcoming Events: -
COUNTER/UKSG Usage Statistics Training SeminarsThese one-day seminars are designed to provide library staff with a practical, hands-on introduction to usage statistics as a mangement tool. Since the programme commenced in 2005, a number of successful seminars have been held in the UK, USA and Ireland. The seminars are organized by the UK Serials Group and further information about them may be found on the UKSG website at (http://www.uksg.org/events)News releasesYou will need Adobe Acrobat to view some of the news releases.
Research ProjectsCOUNTER is an active participant in research projects whose objectives are either to improve the quality of online usage statistics or to increase the relevance of usage data in the wider world of scholarly metrics. Below are listed research projects in which COUNTER is currently involved, together with links to further information on these projects. PIRUS2: Publisher and Institutional Repository Usage StatisticsPIRUS 2, supported by JISC, the United Kingdom Joint Information Systems Committee, is a co-operative project involving publishers and repositories, which will develop a set of standards, protocols and processes to enable publishers, repositories and other organizations to generate and share authoritative, trustworthy usage statistics for the individual articles and other items that they host. PIRUS 2 builds on the standards already established by COUNTER and on the results of the original PIRUS project, which demonstrated that it is technically feasible to create record and consolidate usage statistics for individual articles using data from repositories and publishers, despite the diversity of organizational and technical environments in which they operate. The PIRUS2 project was completed in May 2011, and the full report is available here . Articles and Presentations
Invitation to Institutions in Germany to become COUNTER MembersCOUNTER would very much welcome new members from Germany. This letter is an invitation to membership, and highlights the benefits of being a member of COUNTER. Letter to institutions in Germany |
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