The COUNTER Code of Practice for Release 5.0.1

COUNTER’s library, vendor and content provider members have contributed to the development the Code of Practice.

The Code of Practice enables publishers and vendors to produce consistent and credible usage data. This allows libraries to compare data received from different vendors and publishers, and to understand and demonstrate the value of the electronic resources to which they subscribe.

Code of Practice

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Glossary

Appendix A: Glossary of Terms

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Term	Definition	Examples/formats Definition
A&I database A&I_Database	A non-full-text database that typically contains article metadata, abstracts, and subject classifications. Used by researchers to locate publications relevant to their research.	PubMed, PsycInfo
A&I service	A vendor or website that provides A&I databases.	American Psychological Association (APA)
Abstract	A short summary of an article or content item. A detailed view of article metadata that includes the summary but not the full text. Accessing the abstract/detailed view falls into the usage category of Investigations.
Abstract and Index Database Host	See A&I service.	APA, EBSCOhost, ProQuest
Accepted manuscript	The version of a journal article that has been accepted for publication in a journal. This version includes any pre-publication revisions, but it does not include any formatting or copyediting changes or corrections.
Access Denied	User is denied access to a content item because their institution lacks a proper license or because simultaneous user limits specified in the license have been exceeded.
Access Denied: Limit_Exceeded	User is denied access to a content item because the simultaneous user limit for their institution’s license would be exceeded.
Access Denied: No_License	User is denied access to a content item because the user or the user’s institution does not have access rights under an agreement with the content provider.
Access_Method	A COUNTER attribute indicating whether the usage related to investigations and requests was generated by a human user browsing and searching a website (Regular) or by Text and Data Mining processes (TDM).	Regular, TDM
Access_Type	A COUNTER attribute used to report on the nature of access control restrictions, if any, placed on the content item at the time when the content item was accessed.	Controlled, OA_Gold_APC, OA_Gold_Non_APC, OA_Delayed, Other_Free_to_Read
Aggregated_Full_Content	A COUNTER Host_Type for content providers who license full-text articles and possibly non-textual content (beyond bibliographic information).
Aggregated full content database	A database that contains full-text articles and possibly non-textual content (beyond bibliographic information) and that is sold as a self-contained/pre-set grouping of data.	Academic Search Complete
Aggregated full content database host	A content host that provides access to aggregated full content databases.	EBSCOhost, ProQuest
Aggregator	A type of content provider that hosts content from multiple publishers, delivers content direct to customers, and is paid for this service by customers.	EBSCOhost, Gale, Lexis Nexis, ProQuest
ALPSP	The Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers is an international trade association of non-profit publishers.
APC	See Article processing charge.
API	Application Programming Interface.
Article	An item of original written work published in a journal, other serial publication, or in a book. An article is complete, but usually cites other relevant published works in its list of references, if it has one. A COUNTER Data_Type.
Article header	See Metadata.
Article processing charges	An article processing charge (APC), also known as a publication fee, is a fee which is sometimes charged to authors to make a work available open access in either an open access journal or hybrid journal. …They are the most common funding method for professionally published open access articles. [Wikipedia]
Article_Version	Defined by ALPSP and NISO as a classification of the version of an Article as it goes through its publication life-cycle. An element on a COUNTER Expanded Item report that identifies the version of the Article being accessed. Typically COUNTER usage reporting only reflects usage of the following article versions (of the 7 versions defined by the ALPSP/NISO JAV Technical Working Group): · Accepted Manuscript (AM) · Version of Record (VoR) · Corrected Version of Record (CVoR) · Enhanced Version of Record (EVoR).	AM, VoR, CVoR, EVoR
Articles in press	Full-text articles that have been accepted for publication in a journal and have been made available online to customers and that will be assigned a publication date of the current year or a future year.
Attribute	Used to specify a Report Filter when customizing a Master Report.
Author(s)	The person/people who wrote/created the items whose usage is being reported.
Automated search	A search from a discovery layer or similar technology where multiple Databases are searched simultaneously with a single query from the user interface. The end user is not responsible for selecting which Databases are being searched. Usage of this nature is reported as Searches_Automated. A Search run repeatedly (i.e. daily or weekly) by a script or automated process. Usage of this nature must not be included in COUNTER reports.
Automated search agent	A script or automated process that runs a search repeatedly, usually at pre-set intervals such as daily or weekly.
Backfile	See Archive.	Oxford Journals Archive
Begin_Date	The first date in the range for the usage represented in a COUNTER report.
Book	A non-serial publication of any length available in print (in hard or soft covers or in loose-leaf format) or in electronic format. A COUNTER Data Type.
Book Access Denied	Access Denied activity for books, where users were denied access because simultaneous-user licenses were exceeded, or their institution did not have a license for the book.
Book chapter	A subdivision of a book or of some categories of reference work; usually numbered and titled.
Book Request	Book content items retrieved.
Book Section	See Section_Type.
Book Segment	See Section_Type.
Bulk download	A single event where multiple content items are downloaded to the user’s computer.
Cache	Automated system that collects items from remote servers to serve closer and more efficiently to a given population of users. Often populated by robots or modern browsers. Note: Publishers take steps to prevent local caching of their content, i.e. including appropriate headers on their site to restrict caching.
Central Index	Also known as a Discovery Index. A collection of locally-hosted, consistently indexed metadata and content harvested from multiple external metadata and content sources, frequently including a library’s catalog and repository metadata, and usually representing a significant portion of the library’s collection.
Certified Public Accountant (CPA)	An accounting designation granted to accounting professionals in the United States.
Chapter	A subdivision of a book or of some categories of reference work, usually numbered and titled. A COUNTER Section_Type.
Chartered Accountant (CA)	An international accounting designation granted to accounting professionals in many countries around the world, aside from the United States.
Citation	A reference to a published or unpublished source.
Collection	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. For the COUNTER reporting is restricted to pre-set collections that are defined like databases. See Database. Note: A package or bundle provided by a publisher is not considered a database or a collection.
Component	A uniquely identifiable constituent part of a content item composed of more than one file (digital object). See Section 3.
Consortium	A group of institutions joining together to license content.	Ohiolink
Consortium member	An institution that has obtained access 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 or by other specific authentication details.	Ohio State University
Content host	A website that provides access to content typically accessed by patrons of libraries and other research institutions.
Content item	A generic term describing a unit of content accessed by a user of a content host. Typical content items include articles, books, chapters, multimedia, etc.
Content provider	An organization whose function is to commission, create, collect, validate, host, distribute, and trade information in electronic form.	Any publisher, the Metropolitan Museum, Magnum, JSTOR
Controlled	An access type. At the time of the transaction, the content item was not open (i.e. was behind a paywall) because access is restricted to authorized users. Access of content due to a trial subscription would be considered Controlled not Other_Free_to_Read.
Copyright holder	A person or a company who owns any one of the Exclusive Rights of copyright in a work.
Corrected Version of Record	A version of the Version of Record of a journal article in which errors in the VoR have been corrected. The errors could be author errors, publisher errors, or other processing errors.
COUNTER compliance pending	Status of a vendor who is currently not compliant but whose audit is in progress or scheduled.
COUNTER Report Validation Tool	An online tool to validate COUNTER reports in JSON and tabular format.
COUNTER_SUSHI API	A RESTful implementation of SUSHI automation intended to return COUNTER Release 5 reports and snippets of COUNTER usage in JSON format.
Crawler	See Internet robot, crawler, spider.
Created	COUNTER Element Name. The date and time the usage was prepared, in RFC3339 date-time format (yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ssZ).
Created by	COUNTER Element Name. The name of the organization or system that created the COUNTER report.
Crossref	A not-for-profit membership organization for publishers.
Customer	An individual or organization that can access a specified range of the Content provider’s services and/or content and is subject to terms and conditions agreed with the Content provider.
Customer_ID	The field in the COUNTER reports that indicates whose usage is being reported. May be a proprietary or standard value such as ISNI.	ISNI=000000012150090X
Data harvesting	Automated processes used for extracting data from websites.
Data_Repository	An online database service; an archive that manages the long-term storage and preservation of digital resources and provides a catalogue for discovery and access. A COUNTER host type.	Figshare
Data Types, Data_Type	The field identifying type of content. COUNTER recognizes the following Data_Types: · Article · Book · Book Segment · Database · Dataset · Journal · Multimedia · Newspaper_Or_Newsletter · Other · Platform · Report · Repository Item · Thesis_Or_Dissertation
Database	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) A COUNTER Data_Type used when reporting search activity at the database level.	Social Science Abstracts, Reaxys
Dataset	See Data_Type.
Database Master Report	A report that contains additional filters and breakdowns beyond those included in the standard COUNTER reports and are aggregated to the database level.
Delayed open access	At the time of the transaction, the content item published in a subscription journal is free to read after an embargo period. See OA_Delayed.
Digital Object Identifier	See DOI.
Discovery Layer	A web-accessible interface for searching, browsing, filtering, and otherwise interacting with indexed metadata and content. The searches produce a single, relevancy-ranked results set, usually displayed as a list with links to full content, when available. Typically, discovery layers are customizable by subscribing libraries and may be personalized by individual users.
Discovery service Discovery_Service	A pre-harvested central index coupled with fully featured discovery layer.	EDS, Primo, Summon
Discovery services provider	An organization that hosts a discovery service.	EBSCOhost (EDS), ProQuest (Primo/Summon)
Distributed Usage Logging (DUL)	A peer-to-peer channel for the secure exchange and processing of COUNTER-compliant private usage records from hosting platforms to publishers.
DNS lookups	Domain Name System lookups.
DOI (digital object identifier)	The digital object identifier is a means of identifying a piece of intellectual property (a creation) on a digital network, irrespective of its current location. (www.doi.org) DOIs may be assigned at the title, article/chapter, or component level.
Double-click	A repeated click on the same link by the same user within a period of 30 seconds. COUNTER requires that double-clicks must be counted as a single click.
Double-click filtering	A process to remove the potential of over-counting which could occur when a user clicks the same link multiple times. Double-click filtering applies to all metric types.
DR	Database Master Report.
DR_D1	Database Search and Item Usage. A pre-set Standard View of DR showing total item investigations and requests, as well as searches.
DR_D2	Database Access Denied. A pre-set Standard View of DR showing where users were denied access because simultaneous use (concurrency) licenses were exceeded, or their institution did not have a license for the database.
DUL	See Distributed Usage Logging (DUL).
eBook host	A content host that provides access to eBook and reference work content.	EBL, EBSCOhost, ScienceDirect
eBook, E-Book	Monographic content that is published online.
EC	Executive Committee.
eJournal	Serial content that is published online.
eJournal host	A content host that provides access to online serial publications (journals, conferences, newspapers, etc.)	ScienceDirect
Element	A piece of information to be reported on, displayed as a column heading (and/or in the Report Header) in a COUNTER report.	Listed for each Master Report in section 4.
Embargo period	The period of time before an article is moved out from behind the paywall, i.e. from Controlled to OA_Delayed.
End_Date	The last date in the range for the usage represented in a COUNTER report.
Enhanced Version of Record	A version of the Version of Record of a journal article that has been updated or enhanced by the provision of supplementary material. For example, multimedia objects such as audio clips and applets; additional XML-tagged sections, tables, or figures or raw data.
e-Resources	Electronic resources.
Error_No	A unique numeric code included as part of a COUNTER SUSHI exception that identifies the type of error that applies to a report.
Exception	An optional element that may be included within a COUNTER report indicating some difference between the usage that was requested and the usage that is being presented in the report. An exception includes the following elements: · Error_No · Exception_Description · and the data itself.	3040: Partial Data Returned (request was for 2016-01-01 to 2016-12-31, but usage is only available to 2016-08-30).
Exclude_Monthly_Details	Reporting_Period_Total column without month-by-month breakdowns.
Federated search	A federated search application that allows users to simultaneously search multiple databases hosted by the same or different vendors with a single query from a single user interface. The end user is not responsible for selecting the database being searched. See Appendix G.	MetaLib, EBSCOhost Connection
Filter	See Report filter.
Format	A COUNTER Element Name used to identify the format of the content. Reserved values include: HTML, PDF, Other.
Full-text database	A database that consists of full-text articles or other non-textual content beyond bibliographic information and that is sold as a self-contained/pre-set grouping of data.
Full-text article	The complete text—including all references, figures, and tables—of an article, plus links to any supplementary material published with it.
GDPR	General Data Protection Regulation.
GET/status	COUNTER_SUSHI API path. Returns the current status of the COUNTER_SUSHI API service.
GET/reports	COUNTER_SUSHI API path. Returns a list of reports supported by the COUNTER_SUSHI API service.
GET/members	COUNTER_SUSHI API path. Returns the list of consortium members or sites for multi-site customers.
Gold Open Access	See OA_Gold.
Host	See Content host.	Ingenta, Semantico, SpringerLink
Host Site	See Content host.
Host types	A categorization of Content Hosts used by COUNTER to facilitate implementation of the Code of Practice. The Code of Practice identifies the Host types that apply to the various artefacts in the Code of Practice, allowing a Content Host to quickly identify the areas of the Code of Practice to implement by identifying the Host Types categories that apply to them.	· E-Journal eBook Multimedia Aggregated Full Content A&I Database Discovery Service Repository Data Repository Scholarly Collaboration Network
Host UI, host-site UI	User interface that an end-user would use to access content on the Content host.
HTTP	HyperText Transfer Protocol.
Hybrid publication	A publication that is available via a subscription license but also contains articles available as Gold Open Access.
Institution	The organization for which usage is being reported.
Institution_ID	A unique identifier for an institution. In COUNTER reports the Institution_ID is presented as a combination of the identifier type and its value. Proprietary identifiers that identify the content platform can be used.	isni=000000012150090X ebscohost=s12345
Institution_Name	The field in the COUNTER reports that indicates the name of the institution.
Institutional identifier	See Institution_ID.
Intermediary	See Content provider.
Internet robot, crawler, spider	Any automated program or script that visits websites and systematically retrieves information from them, often to provide indexes for search engines. See Appendix I.
Investigation	A category of COUNTER metric types that represent a user accessing information related to a content item (i.e. an abstract or detailed descriptive metadata of an article) or a content item itself (i.e. full text of an article).
IP	Internet Protocol.
IP address	Internet protocol (IP) address of the computer on which the session is conducted. May be used by content providers as a means of authentication and authorization and for identifying the institution a user is affiliated with. The identifying network address (typically four 8-bit numbers: aaa.bbb.cc.dd) of the user’s computer or proxy.
IR	Item Master Report.
IR_A1	Journal Article Requests. A pre-set Standard View of IR showing total item requests for journal articles.
IR_M1	Multimedia Item Requests. A pre-set Standard View of IR showing total item requests for multimedia items.
ISBN (International Standard Book Number)	A unique 13-digit number used to identify a book.
ISIL	International Standard Identifier for Libraries and Related Organizations – https://english.slks.dk/work-areas/libraries/library-standards/isil/
ISNI (International Standard Name Identifier)	A unique number used to identify authors, contributors, and distributors of creative works, including researchers, inventors, writers, artists, visual creators, performers, producers, publishers, aggregators, etc. COUNTER defines ISNI as an optional identifier for an institution.
ISO	International Organization for Standardization.
ISSN (International Standard Serial Number)	A unique 8-digit number used to identify a print or electronic periodical publication. A periodical published in both print and electronic form may have two ISSNs, a print ISSN and an electronic ISSN.
Issue	A collection of journal articles that share a specific issue number and are presented as an identifiable unit online and/or as a physically bound and covered set of numbered pages in print.
Issue date	The date of release by the publisher to customers of a journal issue. When used for COUNTER YOP (year of publication) reporting, the issue date of the print should be used when print and online issue dates differ.
Item	Collective term for content that is reported at a high level of granularity, e.g. a full-text article (original or a review of other published work), an abstract or digest of a full-text article, a sectional HTML page, supplementary material associated with a full-text article (e.g. a supplementary data set), or non-textual resources such as an image, a video, audio, a dataset, a piece of code, or a chemical structure or reaction.	Full text article, TOC, Abstract, Database record, Dataset, Thesis
Item Master Report	A COUNTER report that provides usage data at the item or item-component level.
Item Reports	A series of COUNTER reports that provide usage data at the item or item-component level.
Javascript Object Notation	See JSON.
Journal	A serial that is a branded and continually growing collection of original articles within a particular discipline. A COUNTER data type.	Tetrahedron Letters
Journal DOI	See DOI.
Journal Reports	See Title Reports.
Journal Requests	Journal content items retrieved.
JQuery	A JavaScript library.
License	A contract or agreement that provides an organization or individual (licensee) with the right to access certain content.
Limit_Exceeded	A COUNTER Metric_Type. User is denied access to a content item because the simultaneous user limit for their institution’s license would be exceeded.
Linking_ISSN	International Standard Serial Number that links together the ISSNs assigned to all instances of a serial publication in the format nnnn-nnn[nX] (JSON reports only).
Log file analysis	A method of collecting usage data in which the web server records all of its transactions.
Master Reports	Reports that contain additional filters and breakdowns beyond those included in the standard COUNTER reports.
Metadata	A series of textual elements that describes a content item but does not include the item itself. For example, metadata for a journal article would typically include publisher, journal title, volume, issue, page numbers, copyright information, a list of names and affiliations of the authors, author organization addresses, the article title and an abstract of the article, and keywords or other subject classifications.
Metadata provider	An organization, such as a publisher, that provides descriptive article/item-level metadata to an online search service.
Metric Types, Metric_Types	An attribute of COUNTER usage that identifies the nature of the usage activity. See Sections 4.1.3; 4.2.3; 4.3.3; 4.4.3.	Total_Requests Searches_Regular Limit_Exceeded Unique_Title_Requests
Monograph Text	See Book.
Multimedia	Non-textual media such as images, audio, and video.
Multimedia collection Multmedia_Collection	A grouping of multimedia items that are hosted and searched as a single unit and behave like a database. A COUNTER host type. See also Database.
Multimedia host	A content host that provides access to multimedia content.
Multimedia item	An item of non-textual media content such as an image or streaming or downloadable audio or video files. (Does not include thumbnails or descriptive text/metadata.)
NISO	The National Information Standards Organization is a United States non-profit standards organization that develops, maintains and publishes technical standards related to publishing, bibliographic and library applications. [Wikipedia]
Namespace	A term primarily used in programming languages where the same name may be used for different objects. It is created to group together those names that might be repeated elsewhere within the same or interlinked programs, objects and elements. For example, an XML namespace consists of element types and attribute names. Each of the names within that namespace is only related/linked to that namespace. The name is uniquely identified by the namespace identifier ahead of the name. For example, Namespace1_ John and Namespace2_John are same names but within different namespaces.
Newspaper or Newsletter	Textual content published serially in a newspaper or newsletter.
No_License	A COUNTER Metric_Type. User is denied access to a content item because the user or the user’s institution does not have access rights under an agreement with the vendor.
OA	See Open access.
OA_Delayed	A COUNTER Access_Type. At the time of the transaction, the content item was available as open access because publisher’s embargo period had expired (delayed open access).
OA_Gold	A COUNTER Access_Type. At the time of the transaction, the content item was immediately and permanently available as open access because an APC (article processing charge) has been paid. Content items may be in hybrid publication or fully open access publication. Note that content items offered as delayed open access (open after an embargo period) would be classified as OA_Delayed.
OCLC	OCLC (Online Computer Library Center). An American non-profit cooperative organization “dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world’s information and reducing information costs”. It was founded in 1967 as the Ohio College Library Center. [Wikipedia]
Online_ISSN	A COUNTER identifier for the ISSN assigned to the online manifestation of a serial work. See also ISSN.	1533-4406
Open access	Open Access (OA) refers to online research outputs that are free of all restrictions on access (e.g. access tolls) and free of many restrictions on use (e.g. certain copyright and license restrictions). Open access can be applied to all forms of published research output, including peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed academic journal articles, conference papers, theses, book chapters, and monographs. [Wikipedia]
ORCID	An international standard identifier for individuals (i.e. authors) to use with their name as they engage in research, scholarship, and innovation activities. A COUNTER identifier for item contributors. See .http://orcid.org.
Other	A content item or section that cannot be classified by any of the other data types.
Other_Free_to_Read	A COUNTER Access_Type. At the time of the transaction, the content item was freely available for reading for reasons such as promotions. This also covers all journals where all articles are free to all users because the journal is funded through advertising.
Page tag	Page-tagging is a method of collecting usage data that uses, for example, JavaScript on each page to notify a third-party server when a page is rendered by a web-browser.
Parent	In COUNTER Item Reports the parent is the publication an item is part of. For a journal article, the parent is the journal, and for a book chapter it is the book.
Paywall	A term used to describe the fact that a user attempting to access a content item must be authorized by license or must pay a fee before the content can be accessed.
PDF	Portable Document Format, file formatted for the Adobe Acrobat reader. Items such as full-text articles or journals published in PDF format tend to replicate the printed page in appearance.
PHP	Hypertext Preprocessor is a server-side scripting language designed for web development. The PHP reference implementation is now produced by The PHP Group. [Wikipedia]
Platform	An interface from an aggregator, publisher, or other online service that delivers the content to the user and that counts and provides the COUNTER usage reports.	Wiley Online Library, HighWire
Platform Master Report	A Report that contains additional filters and breakdowns beyond those included in the standard COUNTER reports, and which are aggregated to the platform level.
Platform Reports	A series of COUNTER reports that provide usage aggregated to the platform level.
Platform search	Search conducted by users of a Platform.
Platform usage	Activity across all metrics for entire platforms.
PR	Platform Master Report.
PR_P1	Platform Usage. A pre-set Standard View of PR showing total and unique item requests, as well as platform searches.
Print_ISSN	A COUNTER identifier for the ISSN assigned to the print manifestation of a work. See also ISSN.	0028-4793
Proprietary Identifier	See Proprietary_ID.
Proprietary_ID	A COUNTER identifier for a unique identifier given by publishers and other content providers to a product or collection of products.
Provider ID	A unique identifier for a content provider and used by discovery services and other content sites to track usage for content items provided by that provider.
Publication Date, Publication_Date	An optional field in COUNTER item reports and Provider Discovery Reports. The date of release by the publisher to customers of a content item.
Publisher	An organization whose function is to commission, create, collect, validate, host, distribute and trade information online and/or in printed form.	Sage, Cambridge University Press
Publisher_ID	A COUNTER identifier for a publisher’s unique identifier. In COUNTER reports the publisher ID is presented as a combination of identifier type and value.
R4	Release 4.
R5	Release 5.
Reference work	An authoritative source of information about a subject used to find quick answers to questions. The content may be stable or updated over time.	Dictionary, encyclopedia, directory, manual, guide, atlas, bibliography, index
References	A list of works referred to in an article or chapter with sufficient detail to enable the identification and location of each work.
Registry of compliance	The COUNTER register of content providers compliant with the COUNTER Code of Practice.
Regular	A COUNTER Access_Method. Indicates that usage was generated by a human user browsing/searching a website, rather than by text and data mining processes.
Regular search	A search conducted by a user on a host where the user is in control over which databases can be searched.
Release	Version of the COUNTER Code of Practice.
Report Attribute, Report_Attributes	A series of zero or more report attributes applied to the report. Typically, a report attribute affects how the usage is presented, but does not change the totals.	Exclude_Report_Header; Attributes_To_Show=Access_Type\|YOP
Report filters	In COUNTER reports the report filter can be used to limit the usage returned.	Data_Type=journal
Report_ID	The alphanumeric identifier of a specific report Standard View.	DR_D1: Database Search and Item Usage. TR_J3, Journal Usage by Access Type
Report item attributes	A series of elements that describe the nature of usage for an item and may include Access_Type, YOP, etc.
Report name Report_Name	The name of a COUNTER report.	Journal Title Report 1
Report validation tool	See COUNTER Report Validation Tool.
Reporting period, Reporting_Period	The total time period covered in a usage report.
Repository	A host who provides access to an institution’s research output. Includes subject repositories, institution, department, etc.	Cranfield CERES
Repository item	A content item hosted in a repository, including one that consists of one or more digital objects such as text files, audio, video or data, described by associated metadata.
Request	A category of COUNTER Metric Types that represents a user accessing content (i.e. full text of an article).	Total_Item_Requests
Requestor ID	A system-generated hash identifier that uniquely identifies a requestor session.
Required reports	The COUNTER reports that Host_Types are required to provide.
Research data	Data that supports research findings and may include databases, spreadsheets, tables, raw transaction logs, etc.
RESTful COUNTER_SUSHI API	A RESTful implementation of SUSHI automation intended to return COUNTER Release 5 reports and snippets of COUNTER usage in JSON format.
Return code	Defined and maintained by W3C (http://www.w3.org/Protocols/HTTP/HTRESP.html).
Robot	See Internet robot, crawler, spider.
Scholarly Collaboration Network	A service used by researchers to share information about their work.	Mendeley, Reddit/Science
Scholarly Collaboration Network data aggregator	A host who provides access to metrics on communications and interactions on scholarly collaboration networks.	Altmetric.com
Screen scraping	The action of using a computer program to copy data from a website.
Search	A user-driven intellectual query, typically equated to submitting the search form of the online service to the server.
Search engine	A service that allows users to search for content via the World Wide Web.
Searches_Regular	A COUNTER Metric Type used to report on searches conducted by a user on a host where the user is in control over which databases can be searched. Note: If a search is conducted across multiple databases, each database searched can count that search. See also Regular Search.
Searches_Automated	A COUNTER Metric Type used to report searches conducted through a discovery service or by an automated search agent. See also Automated Search.
Searches_Federated	A COUNTER Metric Type used to report searches conducted through a federated search service. See Appendix G. See also Federated search.
Searches_Platform	A COUNTER Metric Type used to report searches conducted on a platform. Note: Searches conducted against multiple databases on the platform will only be counted once.
Section	The first level of subdivision of a book or reference work.	Chapter, entry
Section Types, Section_Type	A COUNTER attribute that identifies the type of section that was accessed by the user.	Article, book, chapter
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, monographic series). (NISO)
Server-side scripting language	Server-side scripting is a technique used in web development which involves employing scripts on a web server which produce a response customized for each user’s request to the website. The alternative is for the web server itself to deliver a static web page. [Wikipedia]
Service	See Content host.	ScienceDirect, Academic Universe
Session	A successful request of an online service. A single 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)
Session cookie	A data file that a web server can place on a browser to track activity by a user and attribute that usage to a session.
Session ID	A unique identifier for a single user session or, in case of a double-click, multiple clicks on the same link within 30 seconds of each other.
Sites	See Hosts.
Spider	See Internet robot, crawler, spider.
Standard View	A pre-defined version of a Master report, designed to meet the most common needs.	Book Requests (Excluding OA_Gold) Journal Article Requests
Standardized Usage Statistics Harvesting Initiative	See SUSHI.
SUSHI	An international standard (Z39-93) that describes a method for automating the harvesting of reports. COUNTER_SUSHI is an implementation of this standard for harvesting COUNTER reports. COUNTER compliance requires content hosts to implement COUNTER_SUSHI.
TAB Separated Value	See TSV.
TDM	Text and data mining (TDM) is a computational process whereby text or datasets are crawled by software that recognizes entities, relationships, and actions. (STM Publishers) An Access_Method in a COUNTER report used to separate regular usage from usage that represents access to content for the purposes of text and data mining.
Text and data mining	See TDM.
Thesis_Or_Dissertation	A COUNTER data type. Dissertation: a long essay on a particular subject, especially one written as a requirement for the Doctor of Philosophy degree. Thesis: a long essay or dissertation involving personal research, written by a candidate for a college degree.
Title	The name of a book, journal, or reference work.
Title Master Report	A report that contains additional filters and breakdowns beyond those included in the standard COUNTER reports and are aggregated to publication title level rather than towards individual articles/chapters.
Title Reports	A series of COUNTER reports where usage is aggregated to the publication title level.
TLS (HTTPS)	Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol, Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) protocol.
Total_Items_Investigations	A COUNTER Metric_Type that represents the number of times users accessed the content (i.e. full text) of an item, or information describing that item (i.e. an abstract).
Total_Item_Requests	A COUNTER Metric_Type that represents the number of times users requested the full content (i.e. full text) of an item. Requests may take the form of viewing, downloading, emailing, or printing content, provided such actions can be tracked by the content provider’s server.
TR	Title Report.
TR_B1	Book Requests (Excluding “OA_Gold”). A pre-set book filter of TR showing full text activity for all content which is not Gold Open Access. Numbers between sites will vary based on whether the content is delivered as a complete book or by chapter.
TR_B2	Book Access Denied. A pre-set book filter of TR showing where users were denied access because simultaneous use (concurrency) licenses were exceeded, or their institution did not have a license for the database.
TR_B3	Book Usage by Access Type. A pre-set book filter of TR showing all applicable metric types broken down by Access_Type.
TR_J1	Journal Requests (Excluding OA_Gold). A pre-set journal filter of TR showing full text activity for all content which is not Gold Open Access.
TR_J2	Journal Accessed Denied. A pre-set journal filter of TR showing all applicable metric types broken down by Access_Type.
TR_J3	Journal Usage by Access Type. A pre-set journal filter of TR showing all applicable metric types broken down by Access_Type.
TR_J4	Journal Requests by YOP (excluding OA_Gold). A pre-set journal filter of TR breaking down the full text usage of non-Gold Open Access content by year of publication (YOP).
Transaction	A usage event.
TSV	Tab Separated Values.
Turnaway	See Access denied.
Unique item	Matchless content item.
Unique_Item_Investigations	A COUNTER Metric Type that represents the number of unique Content Items investigated in a user-session.
Unique_Item_ Requests	A COUNTER Metric Type that represents the number of unique content items requested in a user-session. Examples of items are articles, book chapters, and multimedia files.
Unique title	Matchless book title.
Unique_Title_ Investigations	A COUNTER Metric Type that represents the number of unique titles investigated in a user-session. Examples of titles are journals and books.
Unique_Title_Requests	A COUNTER Metric Type that represents the number of unique titles requested in a user session. Examples of titles are journals and books.
URI	In information technology, a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) is a string of characters used to identify a resource. Such identification enables interaction with representations of the resource over a network, typically the World Wide Web, using specific protocols. [Wikipedia] An optional element on a COUNTER report used to identify the item for which usage is being reported.
URL	Uniform Resource Locator. The address of a World Wide Web page.
URN	Uniform Resource Name, which identifies a resource by name in a particular namespace.
Usage attributes	Fields or elements used to classify or qualify COUNTER usage for analysis.	Access_Type Access_Method YOP
User	A person who accesses the online resource.
User agent	An identifier that is part of the HTTP/S protocol that identifies the software (i.e. browser) being used to access the site. May be used by robots to identify themselves.
User cookie	A small piece of data sent from a website and stored on the user’s computer by the user’s web browser while the user is browsing.
User session	See Session.
UTF-8	UTF-8 is a variable width character encoding capable of encoding all 1,112,064 valid code points in Unicode using one to four 8-bit bytes. The encoding is defined by the Unicode Standard, and was originally designed by Ken Thompson and Rob Pike. The name is derived from Unicode Transformation Format – 8-bit. [Wikipedia]
Vendor	A publisher or other online information provider who delivers licensed content to the customer and with whom the customer has a contractual relationship.	Taylor & Francis, EBSCO
Version of Record	A fixed version of a journal article that has been made available by any organization that acts as a publisher that formally and exclusively declares the article “published”.
W3C	The World Wide Web Consortium is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web. [Wikipedia]
XML	eXtensible Markup Language.
Year of Publication	See YOP.
YOP	Calendar year in which an article, item, issue, or volume is published. For the COUNTER_YOP attribute, use the year of publication for the print when it differs from the online.
Z39.50	An international standard protocol created by NISO for search. A Z39.50 client can search any Z39.50-compatible online service. Often used by federated search services to facilitate searching content at other sites.

Sections and Appendices »

Sections

Appendices

3.0 Technical Specifications for COUNTER Reports

3.1 COUNTER Reports for Libraries

Reports for R5 consist of four Master Reports Reports which contain additional filters and breakdowns beyond those included in the standard COUNTER reports.that allow the librarian to filter and configure to create customized Views of their usage data. R5 also specifies Standard Views (pre-set filters/configuration).

To achieve compliance, a content provider An organization whose function is to commission, create, collect, validate, host, distribute and trade information in electronic form and in doing so provides usage data. This includes organisations sometimes referred to as “Publishers”, “Vendors”, “Platforms” and/or “Intermediaries”.MUST offer the Master Reports Reports which contain additional filters and breakdowns beyond those included in the standard COUNTER reports.and Standard Views that are applicable to their host types.

3.1.1 Master Reports

Master Reports include all relevant metrics and attributes; they are intended to be customizable through the application of filters Limits or restrictions placed on the usage to be included in a COUNTER report usually expressed as a name-value pair, i.e. “Access_Type=Controlled”and other configuration options, allowing librarians to create a report specific to their needs. The four Master Reports Reports which contain additional filters and breakdowns beyond those included in the standard COUNTER reports.are shown in Table 3.a (below) along with their “Report ID”, “Report Name” and “Host Types” who are expected to provide these reports. See Section 3.3.1 below for details on “Host Types”.

Table 3.a (below): Master Reports

Report_ID	Report_Name	Details	Host Types REQUIRED to Provide
PR	Platform Master Report	A customizable report summarizing activity across a content provider’s platforms that allows the user A person who accesses the online resourceto apply filters Limits or restrictions placed on the usage to be included in a COUNTER report usually expressed as a name-value pair, i.e. “Access_Type=Controlled”and select configuration options	All
DR	Database Master Report	A customizable report detailing activity by database that allows the user A person who accesses the online resourceto apply filters Limits or restrictions placed on the usage to be included in a COUNTER report usually expressed as a name-value pair, i.e. “Access_Type=Controlled”and select configuration options	“A&I Database” “Aggregated Full Content” “Multimedia (databases)”
TR	Title Master Report	A customizable report detailing activity at the title level (“Journal”, “Book”, etc.) that allows the user A person who accesses the online resourceto apply filters Limits or restrictions placed on the usage to be included in a COUNTER report usually expressed as a name-value pair, i.e. “Access_Type=Controlled”and select configuration options	“eBook” “E-Journal” “Aggregated Full Content”
IR	Item Master Report	A granular customizable report showing activity at the level of the item (article, chapter, media object, etc.) that allows the user A person who accesses the online resourceto apply filters Limits or restrictions placed on the usage to be included in a COUNTER report usually expressed as a name-value pair, i.e. “Access_Type=Controlled”and select configuration options	“Repository” “Multimedia”

Table 1: Master Reports

Figure 3a (below) provides an example of how the user A person who accesses the online resourceinterface could look. The user A person who accesses the online resourcewill be presented with an interface that allows them to select usage dates, one or more metric types, data types, access types, etc. and indicate if the filter columns are to be included. Including the column will cause usage to be broken out by individual values for the selected filter, whereas not including the column will result in usage being summarized for the selected filter.

Figure 3.a: Example of a user A person who accesses the online resourceinterface

3.1.2 Standard Views

The goal of Standard Views is to provide a set of pre-filtered views of the Master Reports Reports which contain additional filters and breakdowns beyond those included in the standard COUNTER reports.covering the most common set of library needs. Report IDs for Standard Views are derived from the Report ID of the Master Report that they are based on. The format is “MasterReportID_ViewID”.

3.1.2.1 Platform An interface from a “Content Provider” that delivers the content to the user A person who accesses the online resourceand that counts and provides the COUNTER usage reports.Usage Standard Views

The Platform An interface from a “Content Provider” that delivers the content to the user A person who accesses the online resourceand that counts and provides the COUNTER usage reports.Usage Standard Views are derived from the Platform An interface from a “Content Provider” that delivers the content to the user A person who accesses the online resourceand that counts and provides the COUNTER usage reports.Master Report and provide a summary of activity on a given platform An interface from a “Content Provider” that delivers the content to the user A person who accesses the online resourceand that counts and provides the COUNTER usage reports.to support the evaluation of platforms and to provide high-level statistical data to support surveys and reporting to funders.

Table 3.b (below): Platform Usage Standard Views

Report_ID

Report_Name

Details

Host Types

PR_P1

Platform Usage

Platform-level usage summarized by metric type

“E-Journal”

“eBook”

“eBook Collection”

“Multimedia”

“Multimedia Collection”

“Aggregated Full Content”

“A&I Database”

“Discovery Service”

“Repository”

“Data Repository”

“Scholarly Collaboration Network”

See Section 4.1 below for details on Platform An interface from a “Content Provider” that delivers the content to the user A person who accesses the online resourceand that counts and provides the COUNTER usage reports.Usage Reports.

3.1.2.2 Database Usage Standard Views

The Database Usage Standard Views support the evaluation of the value of a given database of resources (e.g. a full text database, an A&I database, or a multimedia Non-textual media such as images, audio and video.collection).

Table 3.c (below): Database Usage Standard Views

Report_ID

Report_Name

Details

Host Types

DR_D1

Database Search A user-driven intellectual query, typically equated to submitting the “Search” form of the online service 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)to the server.and Item Collective term for content which is reported at a high level of granularity, e.g. “Full Text Article” (original or a review of other published work); an “Abstract” or digest of a “Full Text Article”; a sectional HTML Article formatted in HTML so as to be readable by a web browser Hypertext Markup Language. A form of text markup readable by web browserspage; supplementary material associated with a “Full Text Article” (e.g. a supplementary data set), or non-textual resources, such as an image, a video, audio, dataset, piece of code, chemical structure or reaction.Usage

Reports on key search A user-driven intellectual query, typically equated to submitting the “Search” form of the online service 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)to the server.and request A category of COUNTER “Metric Type” that represent a user A person who accesses the online resourceaccessing content (i.e. full text of an “Article”)metrics needed to evaluate a database

“A&I Database”

“Aggregated Full Content”

“Multimedia (databases)”

DR_D2

Database Access Denied

Reports on Access Denied An attempt by a user A person who accesses the online resourceto access content that was denied because their institution lacked a proper license or simultaneous user A person who accesses the online resourcelimits specified in the license were exceeded.activity for databases where users were denied access because simultaneous-use licenses were exceeded or their institution The organization for which usage is being reported.did not have a license A contract or agreement that provides an organization or individual (licensee) with the right to access certain content.for the database

“A&I Database”

“Aggregated Full Content”

“Multimedia (databases)”

See Section 4.2 below for details on Database Usage Reports.

3.1.2.3 Title Usage Standard Views

Title Usage Standard Views are used to support the evaluation of the value of a given serial (e.g. “Journal”, “Magazine”, “Newspaper”) or monograph (e.g. “Book”, “eBook”, “Textbook”, “Reference Work”) title.

Table 3.d (below): Title Usage Standard Views

Report_ID	Report_Name	Details	Host Types
TR_B1	Book Requests (Excluding “OA_Gold”)	Reports on full text activity for non-Gold “Open Access” books as “Total_Item_Requests” and “Unique_Title_Requests”. The “Unique_Title_Requests” provides comparable usage across book A non-serial publication of any length available in print (in hard or soft covers or in loose-leaf format) or in electronic format. A COUNTER “Data_Type”.platforms. The “Total_Item_Requests” shows overall activity; however, numbers between sites will vary significantly based on how the content is delivered (e.g. delivered as a complete “Book” or by “Chapter”).	“e-Book” “Aggregated Full Content”
TR_B2	Book Access Denied	Reports on Access Denied An attempt by a user A person who accesses the online resourceto access content that was denied because their institution lacked a proper license or simultaneous user A person who accesses the online resourcelimits specified in the license were exceeded.activity for “Books” where users were denied access because simultaneous-use licenses were exceeded or their institution The organization for which usage is being reported.did not have a license A contract or agreement that provides an organization or individual (licensee) with the right to access certain content.for the “Book”	“eBook”
TR_B3	Book Usage by Access Type	Reports on “Book” usage showing all applicable “Metric Types” broken down by “Access_Type”	“eBook” “Aggregated Full Content”
TR_J1	Journal Requests (Excluding “OA_Gold”)	Reports on usage of non-Gold “Open Access” Journal content as “Total_Item_Requests” and “Unique_Item_Requests”. The “Unique_Item_Requests” shows comparable usage across journal platform An interface from a “Content Provider” that delivers the content to the user A person who accesses the online resourceand that counts and provides the COUNTER usage reports.by reducing the inflationary effect that occurs when and HTML Article formatted in HTML so as to be readable by a web browser Hypertext Markup Language. A form of text markup readable by web browsersfull text automatically displays and the user A person who accesses the online resourcethen accesses the PDF Portable Document Format, file formatted for the Adobe Acrobat reader. Items such as full-text articles or journals published in PDF format tend to replicate the printed page in appearanceversion. The “Total_Item_Requests” shows overall activity.	“E-Journal” “Aggregated Full Content”
TR_J2	Journal Access Denied	Reports on Access Denied An attempt by a user A person who accesses the online resourceto access content that was denied because their institution lacked a proper license or simultaneous user A person who accesses the online resourcelimits specified in the license were exceeded.activity for journal content where users were denied access because simultaneous-use licences were exceeded or their institution The organization for which usage is being reported.did not have a license A contract or agreement that provides an organization or individual (licensee) with the right to access certain content.for the title	“E-Journal”
TR_J3	Journal Usage by Access Type	Reports on usage of journal content for all metric types An attribute of COUNTER usage that identifies the nature of the usage activity.broken down by “Access_Type”	“E-Journal” “Aggregated Full Content”
TR_J4	Journal Requests by YOP (Excluding “OA_Gold”)	Breaks down the usage of non-Gold Open Access “Open Access” (“OA”) refers to online research outputs that are free of all restrictions on access (e.g. access tolls) and free of many restrictions on use (e.g. certain copyright and license A contract or agreement that provides an organization or individual (licensee) with the right to access certain content.restrictions). “Open Access” can be applied to all forms of published research output, including peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed academic “Journal” “Articles”, conference papers, theses, “Book” “Chapters”, and monographs. [wikipedia]journal content by year of publication (YOP) providing counts for the metric types “Total_Item_Requests” and “Unique_Item_Requests”. Provides the details necessary to analyze usage of content in backfiles or covered by perpetual access agreement. Note: COUNTER reports do not provide access-model or perpetual-access rights details.	“E-Journal” “Aggregated Full Content”

See Section 4.3 below for details on Title Usage Standard Views.

3.1.2.4 Item Collective term for content which is reported at a high level of granularity, e.g. “Full Text Article” (original or a review of other published work); an “Abstract” or digest of a “Full Text Article”; a sectional HTML Article formatted in HTML so as to be readable by a web browser Hypertext Markup Language. A form of text markup readable by web browserspage; supplementary material associated with a “Full Text Article” (e.g. a supplementary data set), or non-textual resources, such as an image, a video, audio, dataset, piece of code, chemical structure or reaction.Usage Standard Views

The Standard Views for item-level reporting are designed to support the most common reporting needs. The Standard View for “Repositories” (“Journal Article An item of original written work published in a “Journal”, other serial publication, or in a “Book”. An “Article” is complete, but usually cites other relevant published works in its list of “References”, if it has one. A COUNTER “Data_Type” used to identify and filter usage of content defined as “Articles”.Requests”) provides insight into the usage of individual journal articles. The Standard View for “Multimedia” (“Multimedia Item Collective term for content which is reported at a high level of granularity, e.g. “Full Text Article” (original or a review of other published work); an “Abstract” or digest of a “Full Text Article”; a sectional HTML Article formatted in HTML so as to be readable by a web browser Hypertext Markup Language. A form of text markup readable by web browserspage; supplementary material associated with a “Full Text Article” (e.g. a supplementary data set), or non-textual resources, such as an image, a video, audio, dataset, piece of code, chemical structure or reaction.Requests”) allows evaluation of “Multimedia” at the title level.

Table 3.e (below): Item Standard Views

Report_ID	Report_Name	Details	Host Types
IR_A1	Journal Article An item of original written work published in a “Journal”, other serial publication, or in a “Book”. An “Article” is complete, but usually cites other relevant published works in its list of “References”, if it has one. A COUNTER “Data_Type” used to identify and filter usage of content defined as “Articles”.Requests	Reports on journal article An item of original written work published in a “Journal”, other serial publication, or in a “Book”. An “Article” is complete, but usually cites other relevant published works in its list of “References”, if it has one. A COUNTER “Data_Type” used to identify and filter usage of content defined as “Articles”.requests at the article An item of original written work published in a “Journal”, other serial publication, or in a “Book”. An “Article” is complete, but usually cites other relevant published works in its list of “References”, if it has one. A COUNTER “Data_Type” used to identify and filter usage of content defined as “Articles”.level. This report is limited to content with a “Data_Type of Journal”, “Section_Type of Article”, and “Metric Types” of “Total_Item_Requests” and “Unique_Item_Requests”.	“Repository”
IR_M1	Multimedia Item Collective term for content which is reported at a high level of granularity, e.g. “Full Text Article” (original or a review of other published work); an “Abstract” or digest of a “Full Text Article”; a sectional HTML Article formatted in HTML so as to be readable by a web browser Hypertext Markup Language. A form of text markup readable by web browserspage; supplementary material associated with a “Full Text Article” (e.g. a supplementary data set), or non-textual resources, such as an image, a video, audio, dataset, piece of code, chemical structure or reaction.Requests	Reports on multimedia Non-textual media such as images, audio and video.requests at the item Collective term for content which is reported at a high level of granularity, e.g. “Full Text Article” (original or a review of other published work); an “Abstract” or digest of a “Full Text Article”; a sectional HTML Article formatted in HTML so as to be readable by a web browser Hypertext Markup Language. A form of text markup readable by web browserspage; supplementary material associated with a “Full Text Article” (e.g. a supplementary data set), or non-textual resources, such as an image, a video, audio, dataset, piece of code, chemical structure or reaction.level	“Multimedia”

See Section 4.4 below for details on Item Collective term for content which is reported at a high level of granularity, e.g. “Full Text Article” (original or a review of other published work); an “Abstract” or digest of a “Full Text Article”; a sectional HTML Article formatted in HTML so as to be readable by a web browser Hypertext Markup Language. A form of text markup readable by web browserspage; supplementary material associated with a “Full Text Article” (e.g. a supplementary data set), or non-textual resources, such as an image, a video, audio, dataset, piece of code, chemical structure or reaction.Usage Reports.

3.2 Formats for COUNTER reports

R5 reports can be delivered in tabular form or as machine-readable data (JSON) via SUSHI. The tabular form MUST be either Excel or a tab-separated-value Unicode text file. The machine-readable format MUST comply with the COUNTER_SUSHI API Specification (See Section 8 below).

All COUNTER Reports have the same layout and structure. Figure 3.b (below) provides an example of the “Journal Requests” View. (The example excludes “OA_Gold”, which means all articles are open access “Open Access” (“OA”) refers to online research outputs that are free of all restrictions on access (e.g. access tolls) and free of many restrictions on use (e.g. certain copyright and license A contract or agreement that provides an organization or individual (licensee) with the right to access certain content.restrictions). “Open Access” can be applied to all forms of published research output, including peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed academic “Journal” “Articles”, conference papers, theses, “Book” “Chapters”, and monographs. [wikipedia]because an article An item of original written work published in a “Journal”, other serial publication, or in a “Book”. An “Article” is complete, but usually cites other relevant published works in its list of “References”, if it has one. A COUNTER “Data_Type” used to identify and filter usage of content defined as “Articles”.processing charge (APC) has been paid). Figure 3.c (below) shows the layout for tabular reports, which will be the focus of the discussions throughout this document. Note that the COUNTER_SUSHI API Specification includes the same elements with the same or similar names; therefore, understanding the tabular reports translates to an understanding of what is REQUIRED in reports retrieved via SUSHI.

Figure 3.b: Journal Requests sample view (Excluding “OA_Gold”)

Figure 3.c: Standard View Layout for COUNTER Reports

All COUNTER reports have a header. In tabular reports, the header is separated from the body with a blank row (to facilitate sorting and filtering in Excel). Beneath that is the body of the report with column headings. The contents of the body will vary by report. Figure 3.c (above) identifies the different kinds of information you may find in the report and the relative positioning of this information. All of this is discussed in more detail below.

3.2.1 Report Header

The first 12 rows of a tabular COUNTER report contain the header, and the 13th row is always blank. The header information is presented as a series of name-value pairs, with the names appearing in Column A and the corresponding values appearing in Column B. All tabular COUNTER reports have the same names in Column A. Column B entries will vary by report.

Figure 3.d: Common Report Header Information

Figure 3.d (above) shows the layout of the common header. The 12 elements in Column A and the values in Column B are discussed in more detail in the table below. Note that the element names (Column B) MUST appear in the COUNTER report exactly as they are shown here. Capitalization, spelling, and punctuation MUST match exactly.

Table 3.e (below): COUNTER Report Header Elements

Element Name	Description of value to provide	Example
“Report_Name”	The name of the report as it appears in Sections 3.1 and 3.2 of this document	Journal Requests (Excluding “OA_Gold”)
“Report_ID”	The unique identifier for the reports that is used in SUSHI An international standard (Z39-93) that describes a method for automating the harvesting of reports. COUNTER_SUSHI is an implementation of this standard for harvesting COUNTER reports. COUNTER compliance requires “Content Providers” to implement COUNTER_SUSHI.requests	TR_J1
“Release”	The COUNTER Release this report complies with	5
“Institution_Name”	Name of the institution The organization for which usage is being reported.the usage in the report represents	Mt. Laurel University
“Institution_ID”	A series of identifiers that represent the institution The organization for which usage is being reported.in the format of “type:value”. Include multiple identifiers by separating with a semicolon-space (“; ”). Identifier types include “isni”, “orcid”, “proprietary…” See the COUNTER_SUSHI API Specification for the enumeration of all possible identifier types permitted.	isni=0000000419369078 isni=0000000419369078; pubsiteA=PrncU
“Metric_Types”	A semicolon-space delimited list of metric types An attribute of COUNTER usage that identifies the nature of the usage activity.requested for this report. Note that even though a “Metric Type” was requested, it might not be included in the body of the report if no report items had usage of that type.	“Unique_Item_Investigations”; “Unique_Item_Requests”
“Report_Filters”	A series of zero or more report filters Limits or restrictions placed on the usage to be included in a COUNTER report usually expressed as a name-value pair, i.e. “Access_Type=Controlled”applied on the reported usage, excluding metric types (which appear in a separate row). Typically, a report filter In COUNTER Reports the “Report Filter” can be used to limit the usage returned in a report.affects the amount of usage reported. Entries appear in the form of “filter_Name=filter_Value” with multiple filter name-value pairs separated with a semicolon-space (“; ”) and multiple filter values for a single filter name separated by the vertical pipe (“\|”) character.values for a single filter name separated by the vertical pipe (“\|”) character.	“Access_Type=Controlled” “Access_Method=Regular”
“Report_Attributes”	A series of zero or more report attributes applied to the report. Typically, a report attribute In COUNTER Reports the “Report Attributes” can be used to modify how a report should be presented. Typically, a “Report Attribute” will not limit or filter the usage being presented.affects how the usage is presented but does not change the numbers. Entries appear in the form of “attribute_name=attribute_value” with multiple attribute name-value pairs separated with a semicolon-space (”; ”) and multiple attribute values for a single attribute name separated by the vertical pipe (“\|”) character.	“Attributes_To_Show=Access_Type”
“Exceptions”	An indication of some difference between the usage that was created and the usage that is being presented in the report. The format for the exception values are: “Error_No: Exception_Description” (Data). The “Error Number” and “Exception_Description” MUST match values provided in Table F.1 of Appendix F. The data is OPTIONAL. Note that for tabular reports, only the limited set of exceptions An optional element that may be included with a COUNTER report indicating of some difference between the usage that was requested and the usage that is being presented in the report. An exception includes the following elements: “Error_No” “Exception_Description” and data.where usage is returned will apply.	3040: Partial Data Returned (request was for 2016-01-01 to 2016-12-31; however, usage is only available to 2016-08-30). 3040: Partial Data Returned
“Reporting_Period”	The date range for the usage represented in the report, in the form of: “begin_date=yyyy-mm-dd”; “end_date=yyyy-mm-dd”.	“begin_date=2016-01-01”; “end_date=2016-08-30”
“Created”	The date the usage was prepared, in the form of “yyyy-mm-dd”	“2016-10-11”
“Created_By”	The name of the organization or system that created the COUNTER report	EBSCO Information Services 360 COUNTER
(blank row)	Row 13 MUST be blank

3.2.2 Report Body

Figures 3b and 3c (above) show the body of the COUNTER reports containing an extensive array of data elements. Not all reports will include all elements. When formatting a report, maintain the order of elements described below, but only include those elements relevant to that report. Where practical, the discussion below will provide guidance as to which reports an element may be included in. See Section 4 below for an extensive mapping of elements to reports.

Report Item Collective term for content which is reported at a high level of granularity, e.g. “Full Text Article” (original or a review of other published work); an “Abstract” or digest of a “Full Text Article”; a sectional HTML Article formatted in HTML so as to be readable by a web browser Hypertext Markup Language. A form of text markup readable by web browserspage; supplementary material associated with a “Full Text Article” (e.g. a supplementary data set), or non-textual resources, such as an image, a video, audio, dataset, piece of code, chemical structure or reaction.Description

Every COUNTER report will have columns that describe its report items.

Table 3.f (below): Elements that Describe the Report Item

Element Name	Description	Reports	Examples
“Database”	Name of database for which usage is being reported. Applies only to Database Reports.	DR DR_D1, DR_D2	MEDLINE
“Title”	Name of the book A non-serial publication of any length available in print (in hard or soft covers or in loose-leaf format) or in electronic format. A COUNTER “Data_Type”.or journal for which usage is being reported. Applies only to Title Reports.	TR TR_J1, TR_J2 TR_B1, TR_B2	Journal of Economics Gone with the Wind
“Item”	Name of the article, book chapter, multimedia work, or repository Item A content item Collective term for content which is reported at a high level of granularity, e.g. “Full Text Article” (original or a review of other published work); an “Abstract” or digest of a “Full Text Article”; a sectional HTML Article formatted in HTML so as to be readable by a web browser Hypertext Markup Language. A form of text markup readable by web browserspage; supplementary material associated with a “Full Text Article” (e.g. a supplementary data set), or non-textual resources, such as an image, a video, audio, dataset, piece of code, chemical structure or reaction.hosted in a “Repository”, which consists of one or more digital objects such as text files, audio, video or data, described by associated “Metadata”.for which usage is being reported. Applies only to item Collective term for content which is reported at a high level of granularity, e.g. “Full Text Article” (original or a review of other published work); an “Abstract” or digest of a “Full Text Article”; a sectional HTML Article formatted in HTML so as to be readable by a web browser Hypertext Markup Language. A form of text markup readable by web browserspage; supplementary material associated with a “Full Text Article” (e.g. a supplementary data set), or non-textual resources, such as an image, a video, audio, dataset, piece of code, chemical structure or reaction.reports.	IR	CRISPR gene-editing tested in a person for the first time
“Publisher”	Name of the publisher An organization whose function is to commission, create, collect, validate, host, distribute and trade information online and/or in printed formof the content item. Note that when the content item Collective term for content which is reported at a high level of granularity, e.g. “Full Text Article” (original or a review of other published work); an “Abstract” or digest of a “Full Text Article”; a sectional HTML Article formatted in HTML so as to be readable by a web browser Hypertext Markup Language. A form of text markup readable by web browserspage; supplementary material associated with a “Full Text Article” (e.g. a supplementary data set), or non-textual resources, such as an image, a video, audio, dataset, piece of code, chemical structure or reaction.is a database, the publisher would be the organization that creates that database.	All except Platform An interface from a “Content Provider” that delivers the content to the user A person who accesses the online resourceand that counts and provides the COUNTER usage reports.reports (PR, PR_P1)	Taylor & Francis APA
“Publisher_ID”	A unique identifier for the publisher An organization whose function is to commission, create, collect, validate, host, distribute and trade information online and/or in printed formin the form of “type: identifier”. The list of acceptable identifier types can be found in the COUNTER_SUSHI API Specification. When multiple identifiers are available for a given publisher, include all values separate with semicolon-space “; ” but include only one per type.	All except Platform An interface from a “Content Provider” that delivers the content to the user A person who accesses the online resourceand that counts and provides the COUNTER usage reports.reports (PR, PR_P1)	isni=1234123412341234 EBSCOhost=PubX

Platform

The next column in the report identifies the platform An interface from a “Content Provider” that delivers the content to the user A person who accesses the online resourceand that counts and provides the COUNTER usage reports.where the activity happened.

Table 3.g (below): Elements that Identify the Platform

Element Name

Description

Reports

Examples

“Platform”

Identifies the platform/content host where the activity took place. Note that in cases where individual titles or groups of content have their own branded user A person who accesses the online resourceexperience but reside on a common host, the identity of the underlying common host MUST be used as the “Platform”.

All

EBSCOhost

ProQuest

ScienceDirect

The item Collective term for content which is reported at a high level of granularity, e.g. “Full Text Article” (original or a review of other published work); an “Abstract” or digest of a “Full Text Article”; a sectional HTML Article formatted in HTML so as to be readable by a web browser Hypertext Markup Language. A form of text markup readable by web browserspage; supplementary material associated with a “Full Text Article” (e.g. a supplementary data set), or non-textual resources, such as an image, a video, audio, dataset, piece of code, chemical structure or reaction.being reported on is further identified by the columns to the right of the platform.

Table 3.h (below): Elements for Report Item Collective term for content which is reported at a high level of granularity, e.g. “Full Text Article” (original or a review of other published work); an “Abstract” or digest of a “Full Text Article”; a sectional HTML Article formatted in HTML so as to be readable by a web browser Hypertext Markup Language. A form of text markup readable by web browserspage; supplementary material associated with a “Full Text Article” (e.g. a supplementary data set), or non-textual resources, such as an image, a video, audio, dataset, piece of code, chemical structure or reaction.Identifiers

Element Name	Description	Reports	Examples
“Authors”	Author of the work usage is being reported on	IR IR_A1
“Publication_Date”	Date of publication for the work	IR IR_A1
“Article_Version”	ALPSP/NISO code indicating the version of the parent In COUNTER “Item Reports” the “Parent” is the publication an item Collective term for content which is reported at a high level of granularity, e.g. “Full Text Article” (original or a review of other published work); an “Abstract” or digest of a “Full Text Article”; a sectional HTML Article formatted in HTML so as to be readable by a web browser Hypertext Markup Language. A form of text markup readable by web browserspage; supplementary material associated with a “Full Text Article” (e.g. a supplementary data set), or non-textual resources, such as an image, a video, audio, dataset, piece of code, chemical structure or reaction.is part of i.e. for a “Journal Article”, the “Parent” is the “Journal”; and for a “Book Chapter”, the “Parent” is the “Book”.work. Possible values are “Accepted Manuscript”, “Version of Record”, “Corrected Version of Record”, and “Enhanced Version of Record”.	IR IR_A1	VoR
“DOI”	Digital Object Identifier for the item Collective term for content which is reported at a high level of granularity, e.g. “Full Text Article” (original or a review of other published work); an “Abstract” or digest of a “Full Text Article”; a sectional HTML Article formatted in HTML so as to be readable by a web browser Hypertext Markup Language. A form of text markup readable by web browserspage; supplementary material associated with a “Full Text Article” (e.g. a supplementary data set), or non-textual resources, such as an image, a video, audio, dataset, piece of code, chemical structure or reaction.being reported on.	TR, IR TR_B1, TR_B2, TR_B3, TR_J1, TR_J2, TR_J3, TR_J4, IR_A1, IR_M1
“Proprietary_ID”	An ID assigned by the content provider An organization whose function is to commission, create, collect, validate, host, distribute and trade information in electronic form and in doing so provides usage data. This includes organisations sometimes referred to as “Publishers”, “Vendors”, “Platforms” and/or “Intermediaries”.for the item Collective term for content which is reported at a high level of granularity, e.g. “Full Text Article” (original or a review of other published work); an “Abstract” or digest of a “Full Text Article”; a sectional HTML Article formatted in HTML so as to be readable by a web browser Hypertext Markup Language. A form of text markup readable by web browserspage; supplementary material associated with a “Full Text Article” (e.g. a supplementary data set), or non-textual resources, such as an image, a video, audio, dataset, piece of code, chemical structure or reaction.being reported on. Format as “namespace=value” where the namespace is the platform An interface from a “Content Provider” that delivers the content to the user A person who accesses the online resourceand that counts and provides the COUNTER usage reports.ID of the host which assigned the proprietary identifier.	All except Platform An interface from a “Content Provider” that delivers the content to the user A person who accesses the online resourceand that counts and provides the COUNTER usage reports.Reports (PR,	publisherA=jnrlCode123
“ISBN”	International Standard Book A non-serial publication of any length available in print (in hard or soft covers or in loose-leaf format) or in electronic format. A COUNTER “Data_Type”.Number.	TR, IR TR_B1, TR_B2, TR_B3, IR_A1
“Print_ISSN”	International Standard 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, monographic series). (NISO)Number assigned to the print instance of a 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, monographic series). (NISO)publication.	TR, IR TR_B1, TR_B2, TR_B3, TR_J1, TR_J2, TR_J3, TR_J4
“Online_ISSN”	International Standard 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, monographic series). (NISO)Number assigned to the online instance of a 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, monographic series). (NISO)publication.	TR, IR TR_B1, TR_B2, TR_B3, TR_J1, TR_J2, TR_J3, TR_J4
“URI”	Universal Resource Identifier.	TR_B1, TR_B2, TR_B3, TR_J1, TR_J2, TR_J3, TR_J4, IR_A1, IR_M1

Parent Item Collective term for content which is reported at a high level of granularity, e.g. “Full Text Article” (original or a review of other published work); an “Abstract” or digest of a “Full Text Article”; a sectional HTML Article formatted in HTML so as to be readable by a web browser Hypertext Markup Language. A form of text markup readable by web browserspage; supplementary material associated with a “Full Text Article” (e.g. a supplementary data set), or non-textual resources, such as an image, a video, audio, dataset, piece of code, chemical structure or reaction.Description and Identifiers

When reporting usage on content items like “Articles” and “Book Chapters”, it is often desirable to identify the item’s parent In COUNTER “Item Reports” the “Parent” is the publication an item Collective term for content which is reported at a high level of granularity, e.g. “Full Text Article” (original or a review of other published work); an “Abstract” or digest of a “Full Text Article”; a sectional HTML Article formatted in HTML so as to be readable by a web browser Hypertext Markup Language. A form of text markup readable by web browserspage; supplementary material associated with a “Full Text Article” (e.g. a supplementary data set), or non-textual resources, such as an image, a video, audio, dataset, piece of code, chemical structure or reaction.is part of i.e. for a “Journal Article”, the “Parent” is the “Journal”; and for a “Book Chapter”, the “Parent” is the “Book”.item, such as the “Journal” or “Book” it is part of. This next grouping of columns identifies the parents and is used by a small subset of reports.

Table 3.i (below): Elements that describe a Parent In COUNTER “Item Reports” the “Parent” is the publication an item Collective term for content which is reported at a high level of granularity, e.g. “Full Text Article” (original or a review of other published work); an “Abstract” or digest of a “Full Text Article”; a sectional HTML Article formatted in HTML so as to be readable by a web browser Hypertext Markup Language. A form of text markup readable by web browserspage; supplementary material associated with a “Full Text Article” (e.g. a supplementary data set), or non-textual resources, such as an image, a video, audio, dataset, piece of code, chemical structure or reaction.is part of i.e. for a “Journal Article”, the “Parent” is the “Journal”; and for a “Book Chapter”, the “Parent” is the “Book”.Item

Element Name	Description	Reports	Examples
“Parent_Title”	Title of the parent In COUNTER “Item Reports” the “Parent” is the publication an item Collective term for content which is reported at a high level of granularity, e.g. “Full Text Article” (original or a review of other published work); an “Abstract” or digest of a “Full Text Article”; a sectional HTML Article formatted in HTML so as to be readable by a web browser Hypertext Markup Language. A form of text markup readable by web browserspage; supplementary material associated with a “Full Text Article” (e.g. a supplementary data set), or non-textual resources, such as an image, a video, audio, dataset, piece of code, chemical structure or reaction.is part of i.e. for a “Journal Article”, the “Parent” is the “Journal”; and for a “Book Chapter”, the “Parent” is the “Book”.item	IR	The Serials Librarian
“Parent_Authors”	Author of the parent In COUNTER “Item Reports” the “Parent” is the publication an item Collective term for content which is reported at a high level of granularity, e.g. “Full Text Article” (original or a review of other published work); an “Abstract” or digest of a “Full Text Article”; a sectional HTML Article formatted in HTML so as to be readable by a web browser Hypertext Markup Language. A form of text markup readable by web browserspage; supplementary material associated with a “Full Text Article” (e.g. a supplementary data set), or non-textual resources, such as an image, a video, audio, dataset, piece of code, chemical structure or reaction.is part of i.e. for a “Journal Article”, the “Parent” is the “Journal”; and for a “Book Chapter”, the “Parent” is the “Book”.work	IR
“Parent_Publication_Date”	Date of publication for the parent In COUNTER “Item Reports” the “Parent” is the publication an item Collective term for content which is reported at a high level of granularity, e.g. “Full Text Article” (original or a review of other published work); an “Abstract” or digest of a “Full Text Article”; a sectional HTML Article formatted in HTML so as to be readable by a web browser Hypertext Markup Language. A form of text markup readable by web browserspage; supplementary material associated with a “Full Text Article” (e.g. a supplementary data set), or non-textual resources, such as an image, a video, audio, dataset, piece of code, chemical structure or reaction.is part of i.e. for a “Journal Article”, the “Parent” is the “Journal”; and for a “Book Chapter”, the “Parent” is the “Book”.work	IR
“Parent_Article_Version”	ALPSP/NISO code indicating the version of the parent In COUNTER “Item Reports” the “Parent” is the publication an item Collective term for content which is reported at a high level of granularity, e.g. “Full Text Article” (original or a review of other published work); an “Abstract” or digest of a “Full Text Article”; a sectional HTML Article formatted in HTML so as to be readable by a web browser Hypertext Markup Language. A form of text markup readable by web browserspage; supplementary material associated with a “Full Text Article” (e.g. a supplementary data set), or non-textual resources, such as an image, a video, audio, dataset, piece of code, chemical structure or reaction.is part of i.e. for a “Journal Article”, the “Parent” is the “Journal”; and for a “Book Chapter”, the “Parent” is the “Book”.work. Possible values are “Accepted Manuscript”, “Version of Record”, “Corrected Version of Record”, and “Enhanced Version of Record”.	IR	VoR
“Parent_Data_Type”	Identifies the nature of the parent.	IR	Journal
“Parent_DOI”	DOI assigned to the parent In COUNTER “Item Reports” the “Parent” is the publication an item Collective term for content which is reported at a high level of granularity, e.g. “Full Text Article” (original or a review of other published work); an “Abstract” or digest of a “Full Text Article”; a sectional HTML Article formatted in HTML so as to be readable by a web browser Hypertext Markup Language. A form of text markup readable by web browserspage; supplementary material associated with a “Full Text Article” (e.g. a supplementary data set), or non-textual resources, such as an image, a video, audio, dataset, piece of code, chemical structure or reaction.is part of i.e. for a “Journal Article”, the “Parent” is the “Journal”; and for a “Book Chapter”, the “Parent” is the “Book”.item	IR
“Parent_Proprietary_ID”	A proprietary identified that identifies the parent In COUNTER “Item Reports” the “Parent” is the publication an item Collective term for content which is reported at a high level of granularity, e.g. “Full Text Article” (original or a review of other published work); an “Abstract” or digest of a “Full Text Article”; a sectional HTML Article formatted in HTML so as to be readable by a web browser Hypertext Markup Language. A form of text markup readable by web browserspage; supplementary material associated with a “Full Text Article” (e.g. a supplementary data set), or non-textual resources, such as an image, a video, audio, dataset, piece of code, chemical structure or reaction.is part of i.e. for a “Journal Article”, the “Parent” is the “Journal”; and for a “Book Chapter”, the “Parent” is the “Book”.item in the format of “namespace=value”, where namespace is a unique identifier of the site that assigned the identifier value.	IR	TandF=wser20
“Parent_ISBN”	ISBN of the parent In COUNTER “Item Reports” the “Parent” is the publication an item Collective term for content which is reported at a high level of granularity, e.g. “Full Text Article” (original or a review of other published work); an “Abstract” or digest of a “Full Text Article”; a sectional HTML Article formatted in HTML so as to be readable by a web browser Hypertext Markup Language. A form of text markup readable by web browserspage; supplementary material associated with a “Full Text Article” (e.g. a supplementary data set), or non-textual resources, such as an image, a video, audio, dataset, piece of code, chemical structure or reaction.is part of i.e. for a “Journal Article”, the “Parent” is the “Journal”; and for a “Book Chapter”, the “Parent” is the “Book”.item.	IR
“Parent_Print_ISSN”	Print ISSN The International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) is a unique 8-digit number used to identify a print or electronic periodical publication. Periodical published in both print and electronic form may have two ISSNs, a print ISSN and an electronic ISSN.assigned to the parent In COUNTER “Item Reports” the “Parent” is the publication an item Collective term for content which is reported at a high level of granularity, e.g. “Full Text Article” (original or a review of other published work); an “Abstract” or digest of a “Full Text Article”; a sectional HTML Article formatted in HTML so as to be readable by a web browser Hypertext Markup Language. A form of text markup readable by web browserspage; supplementary material associated with a “Full Text Article” (e.g. a supplementary data set), or non-textual resources, such as an image, a video, audio, dataset, piece of code, chemical structure or reaction.is part of i.e. for a “Journal Article”, the “Parent” is the “Journal”; and for a “Book Chapter”, the “Parent” is the “Book”.item.	IR	0361-526X
“Parent_Online_ISSN”	Online ISSN The International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) is a unique 8-digit number used to identify a print or electronic periodical publication. Periodical published in both print and electronic form may have two ISSNs, a print ISSN and an electronic ISSN.assigned to the parent In COUNTER “Item Reports” the “Parent” is the publication an item Collective term for content which is reported at a high level of granularity, e.g. “Full Text Article” (original or a review of other published work); an “Abstract” or digest of a “Full Text Article”; a sectional HTML Article formatted in HTML so as to be readable by a web browser Hypertext Markup Language. A form of text markup readable by web browserspage; supplementary material associated with a “Full Text Article” (e.g. a supplementary data set), or non-textual resources, such as an image, a video, audio, dataset, piece of code, chemical structure or reaction.is part of i.e. for a “Journal Article”, the “Parent” is the “Journal”; and for a “Book Chapter”, the “Parent” is the “Book”.item.	IR	1541-1095
“Parent_URI”	URI for the parent In COUNTER “Item Reports” the “Parent” is the publication an item Collective term for content which is reported at a high level of granularity, e.g. “Full Text Article” (original or a review of other published work); an “Abstract” or digest of a “Full Text Article”; a sectional HTML Article formatted in HTML so as to be readable by a web browser Hypertext Markup Language. A form of text markup readable by web browserspage; supplementary material associated with a “Full Text Article” (e.g. a supplementary data set), or non-textual resources, such as an image, a video, audio, dataset, piece of code, chemical structure or reaction.is part of i.e. for a “Journal Article”, the “Parent” is the “Journal”; and for a “Book Chapter”, the “Parent” is the “Book”.item	IR	http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=wser20

Component Item Collective term for content which is reported at a high level of granularity, e.g. “Full Text Article” (original or a review of other published work); an “Abstract” or digest of a “Full Text Article”; a sectional HTML Article formatted in HTML so as to be readable by a web browser Hypertext Markup Language. A form of text markup readable by web browserspage; supplementary material associated with a “Full Text Article” (e.g. a supplementary data set), or non-textual resources, such as an image, a video, audio, dataset, piece of code, chemical structure or reaction.Description and Identifiers

Repositories often store multiple components for a given repository A “Content Host” who provides access to an “Institution’s” research output. Includes subject repositories, institution, department, etc.item. These components could take the form of multiple files or datasets, which can be identified and usage reported on separately in repository A “Content Host” who provides access to an “Institution’s” research output. Includes subject repositories, institution, department, etc.reports.

Table 3.j (below): Elements that Describe a Component Item

Element Name	Description	Reports	Examples
“Component_Title”	Name or title of the component item	IR
“Component_Authors”	Author of the component item	IR
“Component_Publication_Date”	Date of publication for the component item	IR
Parent_Article_Version	ALPSP/NISO code indicating the version of the parent In COUNTER “Item Reports” the “Parent” is the publication an item Collective term for content which is reported at a high level of granularity, e.g. “Full Text Article” (original or a review of other published work); an “Abstract” or digest of a “Full Text Article”; a sectional HTML Article formatted in HTML so as to be readable by a web browser Hypertext Markup Language. A form of text markup readable by web browserspage; supplementary material associated with a “Full Text Article” (e.g. a supplementary data set), or non-textual resources, such as an image, a video, audio, dataset, piece of code, chemical structure or reaction.is part of i.e. for a “Journal Article”, the “Parent” is the “Journal”; and for a “Book Chapter”, the “Parent” is the “Book”.work. Possible values are “Accepted Manuscript”, “Version of Record”, “Corrected Version of Record”, and “Enhanced Version of Record”.	IR	VoR
“Component_Data_Type”	Data type of the component item.	IR
“Component_DOI”	DOI assigned to the component item	IR
“Component_Proprietary_ID”	Identifier assigned by the repository A “Content Host” who provides access to an “Institution’s” research output. Includes subject repositories, institution, department, etc.to uniquely identify the component. Format as namespace=value	IR
“Component_ISBN”	ISBN that is assigned to the component item. Include if applicable.	IR
“Component_Print_ISSN”	Print ISSN The International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) is a unique 8-digit number used to identify a print or electronic periodical publication. Periodical published in both print and electronic form may have two ISSNs, a print ISSN and an electronic ISSN.that is assigned to the component item. Include if applicable.	IR
“Component_Online_ISSN”	Online ISSN The International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) is a unique 8-digit number used to identify a print or electronic periodical publication. Periodical published in both print and electronic form may have two ISSNs, a print ISSN and an electronic ISSN.that is assigned to the component item. Include if applicable.	IR
“Component_URI”	URI assigned to the component item. Include if applicable.	IR

Item and Report Attributes

Table 3.k (below): Elements for Item Collective term for content which is reported at a high level of granularity, e.g. “Full Text Article” (original or a review of other published work); an “Abstract” or digest of a “Full Text Article”; a sectional HTML Article formatted in HTML so as to be readable by a web browser Hypertext Markup Language. A form of text markup readable by web browserspage; supplementary material associated with a “Full Text Article” (e.g. a supplementary data set), or non-textual resources, such as an image, a video, audio, dataset, piece of code, chemical structure or reaction.and Report Attributes

Element Name	Description	Reports	Examples
“Data_Type”	Nature of the content that was used. See 3.3.2 for more detail and the COUNTER_SUSHI API Specification for an enumerated list of accepted values.	PR, DR, TR, IR	“Book”, “Journal”
“Section_Type”	When content is accessed in chunks or sections, this attribute describes the nature of the content unit. See 3.3.3 for more detail and the COUNTER_SUSHI API Specification for an enumerated list of accepted values.	TR, IR	“Article”, “Chapter”
“YOP”	Year of publication for the item Collective term for content which is reported at a high level of granularity, e.g. “Full Text Article” (original or a review of other published work); an “Abstract” or digest of a “Full Text Article”; a sectional HTML Article formatted in HTML so as to be readable by a web browser Hypertext Markup Language. A form of text markup readable by web browserspage; supplementary material associated with a “Full Text Article” (e.g. a supplementary data set), or non-textual resources, such as an image, a video, audio, dataset, piece of code, chemical structure or reaction.being reported on. See 3.3.7 for more detail and the COUNTER_SUSHI API Specification for an enumerated list of accepted values.	PR, DR, TR, IR	“1997”
“Access_Type”	See 3.3.5 for more detail and the COUNTER_SUSHI API Specification for an enumerated list of accepted values.	PR, TR_J1, TR_B1, TR, IR	“Controlled”, “OA_Gold”
“Access_Method”	See 3.3.6 for more detail and the COUNTER_SUSHI API Specification for an enumerated list of accepted values.	TR, IR	“Regular”, “TDM”

Metric Type

Table 3.l (below): Report Element for Metric Type

Element Name	Description	Reports	Examples
“Metric_Type”	The type of activity that is being counted. See 3.3.4 for more detail and the COUNTER_SUSHI API Specification for an enumerated list of accepted values.	All	“Total_Item_Investigations”

Usage Data

Table 3.m (below): Elements for Usage Data

Element Name	Description	Reports	Examples
“Reporting_Period_Total”	Total of usage in this row for all months covered. Note: This element does NOT appear in the version of the report retrieved using SUSHI.	All	“123456”
“Mmm-yyyy”	A series of columns with usage for each month covered by the report. The format is “Mmm-yyyy”. Note in the SUSHI An international standard (Z39-93) that describes a method for automating the harvesting of reports. COUNTER_SUSHI is an implementation of this standard for harvesting COUNTER reports. COUNTER compliance requires “Content Providers” to implement COUNTER_SUSHI.version of the report, this is represented by “Begin” and “End” date elements for each month..	All	“May-2016”

3.3 COUNTER Report Common Attributes and Elements

Early releases of the COUNTER Code of Practice focused on usage statistics related to “Journals”. That was expanded to “Books”, and later “Articles” and “Multimedia Collections” were added. R5 further expands the scope of COUNTER into the area of research data Data that supports research findings and may include “Databases”, spreadsheets, tables, raw transaction logs, etc.and social media. In order to help organize this increased scope in a single, consistent, and coherent Code of Practice, several new elements and attributes have been added.

3.3.1 Host Types

Usage reports are provided by many different types of content hosts ranging from “eBook Hosts” to “A&I Services”, “E-Journal Hosts”, “Discovery Services”, “Multimedia Hosts” etc. The usage reporting needs vary by host type. To accommodate this variance, the R5 defines a set of host type categories. Although the “Host Type” does not appear on the COUNTER report, the Code of Practice uses “Host Types” throughout this document to help content providers identify which reports, elements, metric types, and attributes are relevant to them. The “Host Types” are:

Table 3.n (below): List of “Host Type” Values

Host Type Category	Description	Example
“E-Journal”	Provides access to online serial (journals, conferences, newspapers, etc.) content made available as individual titles or packages.	ScienceDirect
“eBook”	Provides access to eBook Monographic content that is published online via the internet.content made available as individual eBooks or eBook Monographic content that is published online via the internet.packages	EBL; EBSCOhost; ScienceDirect
“eBook Collection”	Provides access to eBook Monographic content that is published online via the internet.content that is sold as fixed collections and behaves like databases	EBSCOhost
“Multimedia”	Provides access to audio, video, or other multimedia Non-textual media such as images, audio and video.content	Alexander Street Press
“Multimedia Collection”	Provides access to multimedia Non-textual media such as images, audio and video.materials sold as and accessed like databases
“Aggregated Full Content”	Provides access to aggregated pre-set databases of full text and other content where content is accessed in the context of the licensed database	EBSCOhost; ProQuest
“A&I Database”	Provides access to databases containing abstract A short summary of the content of an “Article” or “Content Item”. A detailed view of “Article” “Metadata” on an online host that includes the “Abstract” but does not include the full text of the item. Accessing the “Abstract”/detailed view falls into the usage category of “investigation” (see “Investigation”).and index information on scholarly articles intended to support discovery	APA; EBSCOhost; ProQuest
“Discovery Service”	Assists users with discovery of scholarly content by providing access to a central index of articles, books, and other metadata.	EBSCOhost (EDS); ProQuest (Primo/Summon)
“Repository”	Provides access to an institution’s research output. Includes subject repositories, institution, department, etc.	Cranfield CERES
“Data Repository”	Includes subject repositories, institution, etc.	UK Data Service – ReShare, Figshare, DSpace, Eprints
“Scholarly Collaboration Network “	AA service 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)used by researchers to share information about their work	Mendeley, Reddit/science

Note that a given content host A website that provides access to content typically accessed by patrons of libraries and other research institutions.may be classified has having multiple “Host Types” and would be expected to provide reports, metric types, elements, and attributes applicable to all. For example, EBSCOhost would be classified as “eBook”, “Aggregated Full Content”, “A&I Databases”, and “Discovery”.

3.3.2 Data Types

R5 reports scholarly information in many ways. These major groupings, referred to as “Data Types”, are listed in the table below along with the “Host Types” and Reports that they apply to:

Table 3.o (below): List of “Data_Type” Values

Data Type	Description	Host Types	Reports (Abbrev)
“Article”	An article, typically published in a journal or reference work	“A&I Database” “Aggregated Full Content” “Discovery” “E-Journal” “Repository”	IR
“Book”	A monograph text	“A&I Database” “Aggregated Full Content” “Discovery” “eBook” “eBook Collection” “Repository”Collection Repository	TR, PR, IR, TR_B1, TR_B2
“Book Segment”	A book segment (e.g. chapter, section label, etc.). Note that the book segment See “Section_Type”.type will be represented by the “Section_Type” element in the COUNTER report.	“A&I Database” “Aggregated Full Content” “Discovery” “eBook” “eBook Collection” “Repository”	IR
“Database”	A fixed database where content is searched and accessed in the context of the database. A given item Collective term for content which is reported at a high level of granularity, e.g. “Full Text Article” (original or a review of other published work); an “Abstract” or digest of a “Full Text Article”; a sectional HTML Article formatted in HTML so as to be readable by a web browser Hypertext Markup Language. A form of text markup readable by web browserspage; supplementary material associated with a “Full Text Article” (e.g. a supplementary data set), or non-textual resources, such as an image, a video, audio, dataset, piece of code, chemical structure or reaction.on the host may be in multiple databases but a transaction A usage event.can be attributed to a specific database.	“A&I Database” “Aggregated Full Content” “Discovery”	DR, DR_D1, DR_D2,
“Dataset”	A data set	“Repository”	IR
“Journal”	Textual content published serially as a journal or magazine	“A&I Database” “Aggregated Full Content” “Discovery” “E-Journal” “Repository”	TR, PR, IR, TR_J1 TR_J2
“Multimedia”	Multimedia content such as audio, image, streaming audio, streaming video, and video	“Multimedia” “Multimedia Collection”	IR
“Newspaper or Newsletter”	Textual content published serially in a newspaper or newsletter	“A&I Database” “Aggregated Full Content” “Discovery” “Repository”	TR, PR, DR, IR
“Other”	Content that cannot be classified by any of the other “Data Types”	“A&I Database” “Aggregated Full Content” “Discovery” “Repository”	TR, PR, DR, IR
“Platform”	A content platform An interface from a “Content Provider” that delivers the content to the user A person who accesses the online resourceand that counts and provides the COUNTER usage reports.that may reflect usage from multiple “Data Types”	“E-Journal” “eBook” “eBook Collection” “Multimedia” “Multimedia Collection” “Aggregated Full Content” “A&I Database” “Discovery Service” “Repository” “Data Repository” “Scholarly Collaboration Network”	PR, PR_P1
“Repository Item”	A generic classification used for items stored in a repository	“Repository”	IR
“Report”	A report	“A&I Database” “Aggregated Full Content” “Discovery” “Repository”	TR, PR, DR, IR
“Thesis or Dissertation”	A thesis or dissertation	“A&I Database” “Aggregated Full Content” “Discovery” “Repository”	TR, PR, DR, IR

3.3.3 Section Types

Some scholarly content is accessed in sections. For example, a user A person who accesses the online resourcemay access a chapter A subdivision of a “Book” or of some categories of “Reference Work”; usually numbered and titled. A COUNTER “Section_Type”.or section at a time. The “Section_Type” was introduced to provide categorization of the transaction A usage event.based on the type of section accessed. For example, a librarian could use a “Title Master Report” to see a breakdown of usage by “Title” and “Section_Type”. The following table lists the “Section Types” defined by COUNTER and includes the “Host_Type” and reports where “Section Types” may appear.

Table 3.p (below): List of “Section_Type” Values

Section Type	Description	Host Types	Reports (Abbrev)
“Article”	An article An item of original written work published in a “Journal”, other serial publication, or in a “Book”. An “Article” is complete, but usually cites other relevant published works in its list of “References”, if it has one. A COUNTER “Data_Type” used to identify and filter usage of content defined as “Articles”.from a compilation, such as a journal, encyclopedia, or reference book	“A&I Database” “Aggregated Full Content” “Discovery” “E-Journal” “Repository”	TR IR
“Book”	A complete book, accessed as a single file	“A&I Database” “Aggregated Full Content” “Discovery” “E-Journal” “Repository”	TR IR
“Chapter”	A chapter A subdivision of a “Book” or of some categories of “Reference Work”; usually numbered and titled. A COUNTER “Section_Type”.from a book	“A&I Database” “Aggregated Full Content” “Discovery” “E-Journal” “Repository”	TR IR
“Other”	Content delivered in sections not otherwise represented on the list	“A&I Database” “Aggregated Full Content” “Discovery” “E-Journal” “Repository”	TR IR
“Section”	A group of chapters or articles	“A&I Database” “Aggregated Full Content” “Discovery” “E-Journal” “Repository”	TR IR

3.3.4 Metric Types

Metric Types, which represent the nature of activity being counted, can be grouped into the categories of “Searches”, “Investigations” and “Requests”, and “Access_Denied”.

Searches

Table 3.q (below): List of search A user-driven intellectual query, typically equated to submitting the “Search” form of the online service 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)to the server.Metric Types

Metric Type	Description	Host Type	Reports
“Searches_Regular”	Number of searches conducted against a user-selected database where results are returned to the user A person who accesses the online resourceon the host UI. The user A person who accesses the online resourceis responsible for selecting the “Databases” or set of data to be “Searched”. This metric only applies to usage tracked at the “Database” level and is not represented at the “Platform” level.	“Aggregated Full Content”; “A&I Databases”	DR, DR_D1
“Searches_Automated”	Searches conducted on the “Host Site” or “Discovery Service” where results are returned in the host-site UI User interface that an end user A person who accesses the online resourcewould use to access content on the “Content Host”.and multiple databases are searched without user A person who accesses the online resourceselection of “Databases”. This metric only applies to usage that is tracked at the “Database” level but is not represented at the “Platform” level.	“Aggregated Full Content”; “A&I Databases”	DR, DR_D1
“Searches_Federated”	Searches conducted by a federated search A user-driven intellectual query, typically equated to submitting the “Search” form of the online service 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)to the server.engine where the “Search” activity is conducted remotely via client-server technology. This metric only applies to usage that is tracked at the “Database” level but is not represented at the “Platform” level.	“Aggregated Full Content” “A&I Databases”	DR, DR_D1
“Searches_Platform”	Searches conducted by users and captured at the “Platform” level. Each user-initiated search A user-driven intellectual query, typically equated to submitting the “Search” form of the online service 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)to the server.can only be counted once regardless of the number of “Databases” involved in the search. This metric only applies to “Platform Reports and Views”.	“E-Journal” “eBook” “eBook Collection” “Multimedia” “Multimedia Collection” “Aggregated Full Content” “A&I Database” “Discovery Service” “Data Repository” “Scholarly Collaboration Network”	PR, PR_P1,

Investigations and Requests of Items and Titles

This group of “Metric Types” represents activities where content items were retrieved (“Requests”) or information about a content item (e.g. an “Abstract”) was examined (“Investigations”). Any user A person who accesses the online resourceactivity that can be attributed to a “Content Item” will be considered an “Investigation” including downloading or viewing the “Item”. “Requests” are limited to user A person who accesses the online resourceactivity related to retrieving or viewing the “Content Item” itself. The figure below provides a graphical representation of the relationship between “Investigations” and “Requests”.

Figure 3e: The relationship between “Investigations” and “Requests”

Totals, Unique_Items and Unique_Titles

R5 also introduces the concept of totals: “Unique_Items” and “Unique_Titles”. The metric types An attribute of COUNTER usage that identifies the nature of the usage activity.that begin with “Total_” are very similar to the metrics of R4, i.e. if a given article An item of original written work published in a “Journal”, other serial publication, or in a “Book”. An “Article” is complete, but usually cites other relevant published works in its list of “References”, if it has one. A COUNTER “Data_Type” used to identify and filter usage of content defined as “Articles”.or book A non-serial publication of any length available in print (in hard or soft covers or in loose-leaf format) or in electronic format. A COUNTER “Data_Type”.or book chapter A subdivision of a “Book” or of some categories of “Reference Work”; usually numbered and titled. A COUNTER “Section_Type”.was accessed multiple times in a user A person who accesses the online resourcesession, the metric would increase by the number of times the “Content Item” was accessed (minus any adjustments for double-clicks).

“Unique_Item” metrics have been introduced in R5 to help eliminate the effect different styles of user A person who accesses the online resourceinterface may have on usage counts. With R5, if the same article An item of original written work published in a “Journal”, other serial publication, or in a “Book”. An “Article” is complete, but usually cites other relevant published works in its list of “References”, if it has one. A COUNTER “Data_Type” used to identify and filter usage of content defined as “Articles”.was accessed multiple times in a given user A person who accesses the online resourcesession, the corresponding metric can only increase by 1 to simply indicate that content item Collective term for content which is reported at a high level of granularity, e.g. “Full Text Article” (original or a review of other published work); an “Abstract” or digest of a “Full Text Article”; a sectional HTML Article formatted in HTML so as to be readable by a web browser Hypertext Markup Language. A form of text markup readable by web browserspage; supplementary material associated with a “Full Text Article” (e.g. a supplementary data set), or non-textual resources, such as an image, a video, audio, dataset, piece of code, chemical structure or reaction.was accessed in the session.

“Unique_Title” metrics have been introduced in R5 to help normalize eBook Monographic content that is published online via the internet.metrics. Since eBooks can be downloaded as an entire “Book” in a single PDF Portable Document Format, file formatted for the Adobe Acrobat reader. Items such as full-text articles or journals published in PDF format tend to replicate the printed page in appearanceor as separate “Chapters”, the counts for R4’s BR1 (book downloads) and BR2 (section downloads) are not comparable. With the “Unique_Title” metrics, the book A non-serial publication of any length available in print (in hard or soft covers or in loose-leaf format) or in electronic format. A COUNTER “Data_Type”.title’s “Unique_Title” metrics are only increased by one no matter how many (or how many times) chapters or sections were accessed in a given user A person who accesses the online resourcesession. “Unique_Title” metrics provide comparable eBook Monographic content that is published online via the internet.metrics regardless of the nature of the platform An interface from a “Content Provider” that delivers the content to the user A person who accesses the online resourceand that counts and provides the COUNTER usage reports.and how eBook Monographic content that is published online via the internet.content was delivered.

Table 3.r (below): “Metric_Types” for “Requests” and “Investigations”

Metric Type	Description	Host Type	Reports
“Total_Item_Investigations”	Total number of times a “Content Item” or information related to a “Content Item” was accessed. Double-click filters Limits or restrictions placed on the usage to be included in a COUNTER report usually expressed as a name-value pair, i.e. “Access_Type=Controlled”are applied to these transactions. Examples of “Content Items” are article, book chapter, or multimedia Non-textual media such as images, audio and video.files.	“E-Journal” “eBook” “eBook Collection” “Multimedia” “Multimedia Collection” “Aggregated Full Content” “A&I Database” “Discovery Service” “Data Repository” “Scholarly Collaboration Network” All except “Repository”*	TR, DR, PR, IRTR_B3TR_J3DR_D1
“Unique_Item_Investigations”	Number of unique “Content Items” investigated in a user-session. Examples of “Content Items” are article, book chapter, or multimedia Non-textual media such as images, audio and video.files.	“E-Journal” “eBook” “eBook Collection” “Multimedia” “Multimedia Collection” “Aggregated Full Content” “A&I Database” “Discovery Service” “Data Repository” “Scholarly Collaboration Network” All except “Repository”*	TR, DR, PR, IRTR_B3TR_J3
“Unique_Title_Investigations”	Number of unique titles investigated in a user-session. Examples of “Titles” are journals and books.	“E-Journal” “eBook” “eBook Collection” “Multimedia” “Multimedia Collection” “Aggregated Full Content” “A&I Database” “Discovery Service” “Data Repository” “Scholarly Collaboration Network” All except “Repository”*	TR, DR, PR, IRTR_B3
“Total_Item_Requests”	Total number of times a “Content Item” was requested (i.e. the full text or content was downloaded or viewed). Double-click filters Limits or restrictions placed on the usage to be included in a COUNTER report usually expressed as a name-value pair, i.e. “Access_Type=Controlled”applied.	“E-Journal” “eBook” “eBook Collection” “Multimedia” “Multimedia Collection” “Aggregated Full Content” “A&I Database” “Discovery Service” “Repository” “Data Repository” “Scholarly Collaboration Network”	TR, DR, PR, IRPR_P1DR_D1TR_B1TR_B3TR_J1TR_J3TR_J4IR_A1IR_M1
“Unique_Item_Requests”	Number of unique “Content Items” requested in a user-session. Examples of “Content Items” are article, book chapter, or multimedia Non-textual media such as images, audio and video.files.	“E-Journal” “eBook” “eBook Collection” “Multimedia” “Multimedia Collection” “Aggregated Full Content” “A&I Database” “Discovery Service” “Repository” “Data Repository” “Scholarly Collaboration Network”	TR, DR, PR, IRPR_P1TR_B3TR_J1TR_J3TR_J4
“Unique_Title_Requests”	Number of unique titles requested in a user-session. Examples of “Titles” are journals and books.		TR, DR, PR, IRTR_B1TR_B3

*“Repositories” may provide these “Metric_Types” if they are able to.

Access Denied

Table 3.s (below): List of “Metric_Types” for “Access_Denied”

Metric Type

Description

Host Type

Reports

“No_License”

Number of times access was denied because the user’s institution The organization for which usage is being reported.did not have a license A contract or agreement that provides an organization or individual (licensee) with the right to access certain content.to the content.

Note that if the user A person who accesses the online resourceis automatically redirected to an abstract, that action will be counted as both a “No_License” and an “Item_Investigation”.

“E-Journal”

“eBook”

“eBook Collection”

“Multimedia”

“Multimedia Collection”

“Aggregated Full Content”

“A&I Database”

“Discovery Service”

“Repository”

“Data Repository”

“Scholarly Collaboration Network”

TR_B2, DR_D2, TR_J2

“Limit_Exceeded”

Number of times access was denied because the licensed simultaneous-user limit for the user’s institution The organization for which usage is being reported.was exceeded.

“E-Journal”

“eBook”

“eBook Collection”

“Multimedia”

“Multimedia Collection”

“Aggregated Full Content”

“A&I Database”

“Discovery Service”

“Repository”

“Data Repository”

“Scholarly Collaboration Network”

TR_B2, DR_D2, TR_J2

3.3.5 Access Types

In order to track the value of usage for licensed content, librarians want to know how much usage was open access “Open Access” (“OA”) refers to online research outputs that are free of all restrictions on access (e.g. access tolls) and free of many restrictions on use (e.g. certain copyright and license A contract or agreement that provides an organization or individual (licensee) with the right to access certain content.restrictions). “Open Access” can be applied to all forms of published research output, including peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed academic “Journal” “Articles”, conference papers, theses, “Book” “Chapters”, and monographs. [wikipedia]or other freely available content and how much was behind a paywall. To accommodate this R5 has introduced an “Access_Type” attribute with values of “Controlled”, “OA_Gold”, “OA_Delayed”, and “Other_Free_To_Read”.

Table 3.t (below): List of “Access_Type” Values

Access_Type	Description	Host Type	Reports
“Controlled”	At the time of the request A category of COUNTER “Metric Type” that represent a user A person who accesses the online resourceaccessing content (i.e. full text of an “Article”)or investigation A category of COUNTER “Metric Type” that represent a user A person who accesses the online resourceaccessing information related to a “Content Item” (i.e. “Abstract” or detailed descriptive “Metadata” of an “Article”) or a “Content Item” itself (i.e. full text of an article).the “Content Item” was not open (e.g. behind a paywall) because access is restricted to authorized users. Access of content due to a trial subscription/license would be considered “Controlled”. Platforms providing content that has been made freely available but is not “OA_Gold” (e.g. free for marketing purposes or because the title offers free access after a year) MUST be tracked as “Controlled”.	“E-Journal” “eBook” “Multimedia” “Repository”	TR, IR TR_J1,
“OA_Gold”	At the time of the user request A category of COUNTER “Metric Type” that represent a user A person who accesses the online resourceaccessing content (i.e. full text of an “Article”)or investigation A category of COUNTER “Metric Type” that represent a user A person who accesses the online resourceaccessing information related to a “Content Item” (i.e. “Abstract” or detailed descriptive “Metadata” of an “Article”) or a “Content Item” itself (i.e. full text of an article).the “Content Item” was available under a Gold Open Access “Open Access” (“OA”) refers to online research outputs that are free of all restrictions on access (e.g. access tolls) and free of many restrictions on use (e.g. certain copyright and license A contract or agreement that provides an organization or individual (licensee) with the right to access certain content.restrictions). “Open Access” can be applied to all forms of published research output, including peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed academic “Journal” “Articles”, conference papers, theses, “Book” “Chapters”, and monographs. [wikipedia]license (content that is immediately and permanently available as open access “Open Access” (“OA”) refers to online research outputs that are free of all restrictions on access (e.g. access tolls) and free of many restrictions on use (e.g. certain copyright and license A contract or agreement that provides an organization or individual (licensee) with the right to access certain content.restrictions). “Open Access” can be applied to all forms of published research output, including peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed academic “Journal” “Articles”, conference papers, theses, “Book” “Chapters”, and monographs. [wikipedia]because an article An item of original written work published in a “Journal”, other serial publication, or in a “Book”. An “Article” is complete, but usually cites other relevant published works in its list of “References”, if it has one. A COUNTER “Data_Type” used to identify and filter usage of content defined as “Articles”.processing charge applies or the publication process was sponsored by a library, society, or other organization.) Content items may be in “Hybrid Publications” or fully “Open Access” publications. Note that content items offered as “Delayed Open Access” (open after an embargo period) MUST currently be classified as “Controlled”, pending the implementation of “OA_Delayed”.	“E-Journal” “eBook” “Multimedia” “Repository”	TR, IR TR_J1,
“OA_Delayed”	* RESERVED FOR FUTURE USE – DO NOT IMPLEMENT * At the time of the user request A category of COUNTER “Metric Type” that represent a user A person who accesses the online resourceaccessing content (i.e. full text of an “Article”)or investigation A category of COUNTER “Metric Type” that represent a user A person who accesses the online resourceaccessing information related to a “Content Item” (i.e. “Abstract” or detailed descriptive “Metadata” of an “Article”) or a “Content Item” itself (i.e. full text of an article).the “Content Item” was available as open access “Open Access” (“OA”) refers to online research outputs that are free of all restrictions on access (e.g. access tolls) and free of many restrictions on use (e.g. certain copyright and license A contract or agreement that provides an organization or individual (licensee) with the right to access certain content.restrictions). “Open Access” can be applied to all forms of published research output, including peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed academic “Journal” “Articles”, conference papers, theses, “Book” “Chapters”, and monographs. [wikipedia]after an embargo period The period of time before an “Article” is moved out from behind the paywall, i.e. from “CONTROLLED” to “OA_DELAYED”had expired (“Delayed Open Access”). Note that author-archived works hosted in institutional repositories where access is restricted from public access for an embargo period The period of time before an “Article” is moved out from behind the paywall, i.e. from “CONTROLLED” to “OA_DELAYED”will report usage as “OA_Delayed” for content accessed after the embargo period The period of time before an “Article” is moved out from behind the paywall, i.e. from “CONTROLLED” to “OA_DELAYED”expires. NOTE: this value is not to be used until its inclusion has been approved by COUNTER and a timeframe for implementation published by COUNTER.	“E-Journal” “eBook” “Multimedia” “Repository”	TR, IR TR_J1,
“Other_Free_To_Read”	At the time of the transaction A usage event.the “Content Item” was available as free-to-read (no license A contract or agreement that provides an organization or individual (licensee) with the right to access certain content.required) and did not qualify under either of the OA “Access_Type” categories. NOTE: this value is for “Institutional Repositories” only.	“Repository”	IR

3.3.6 Access Methods

In order to track content usage that was accessed for the purpose of text and data mining (“TDM”) and to keep that usage separate from normal usage, R5 introduces the “Access_Method” attribute, with values of “Regular” and “TDM”.

Table 3.u (below): List of “Access_Method” Values

Access_Method

Description

Host Type

Reports

“Regular”

Refers to activities on a platform An interface from a “Content Provider” that delivers the content to the user A person who accesses the online resourceand that counts and provides the COUNTER usage reports.or content host A website that provides access to content typically accessed by patrons of libraries and other research institutions.that represent typical user A person who accesses the online resourcebehavior

“E-Journal”

“TDM”

Content and metadata A series of textual elements that describe a “Content Item” but does not include the “Item” itself. For example, “Metadata” for a “Journal Article” would, typically include: “Publisher”; “Journal” title, volume, issue and page numbers; copyright information; list of names and affiliations of the “Authors”; “Author” organization addresses; “Article title” and “Abstract” of the “Article”; and keywords or other subject classifications.accessed for the purpose of text and data mining, i.e. through a specific API used for “TDM”. Note that usage representing “TDM” activity is to be included in Master Reports Reports which contain additional filters and breakdowns beyond those included in the standard COUNTER reports.only.

“E-Journal”,

“eBook”

3.3.7 YOP

Analyzing collection A subset of the content of a service; a collection is a branded group of online information products from one or more content providers that can be subscribed to/licensed and searched as a complete group. For the COUNTER reporting is restricted to pre-set collections that are defined like “Databases”. See “Database”. Note a package or bundle provided by a publisher is not considered a “Database” or “Collection”.usage by the age of the content is also desired. The “YOP” usage attribute represents year of publication.

Table 3.v (below): “YOP” Formatting

YOP

Description

Host Type

Reports

“yyyy”

The “Year of Publication” for the item Collective term for content which is reported at a high level of granularity, e.g. “Full Text Article” (original or a review of other published work); an “Abstract” or digest of a “Full Text Article”; a sectional HTML Article formatted in HTML so as to be readable by a web browser Hypertext Markup Language. A form of text markup readable by web browserspage; supplementary material associated with a “Full Text Article” (e.g. a supplementary data set), or non-textual resources, such as an image, a video, audio, dataset, piece of code, chemical structure or reaction.as a four-digit year. If a content item Collective term for content which is reported at a high level of granularity, e.g. “Full Text Article” (original or a review of other published work); an “Abstract” or digest of a “Full Text Article”; a sectional HTML Article formatted in HTML so as to be readable by a web browser Hypertext Markup Language. A form of text markup readable by web browserspage; supplementary material associated with a “Full Text Article” (e.g. a supplementary data set), or non-textual resources, such as an image, a video, audio, dataset, piece of code, chemical structure or reaction.has a different year of publication Calendar year in which an “Article”, “Item”, “Issue” or volume Journals: Numbered collection A subset of the content of a service; a collection is a branded group of online information products from one or more content providers that can be subscribed to/licensed and searched as a complete group. For the COUNTER reporting is restricted to pre-set collections that are defined like “Databases”. See “Database”. Note a package or bundle provided by a publisher is not considered a “Database” or “Collection”.of a minimum of one journal issue; in printed form, volumes of more than one issue A collection A subset of the content of a service; a collection is a branded group of online information products from one or more content providers that can be subscribed to/licensed and searched as a complete group. For the COUNTER reporting is restricted to pre-set collections that are defined like “Databases”. See “Database”. Note a package or bundle provided by a publisher is not considered a “Database” or “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 printare 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 A subset of the content of a service; a collection is a branded group of online information products from one or more content providers that can be subscribed to/licensed and searched as a complete group. For the COUNTER reporting is restricted to pre-set collections that are defined like “Databases”. See “Database”. Note a package or bundle provided by a publisher is not considered a “Database” or “Collection”.of articles, chapters, or entries that is part of a larger, multi-volume work, either published together or seriallyis published. For the COUNTER “YOP” attribute, use the year of publication for the print when it differs from the online.for an online version than the print, use the year of publication Calendar year in which an “Article”, “Item”, “Issue” or volume Journals: Numbered collection A subset of the content of a service; a collection is a branded group of online information products from one or more content providers that can be subscribed to/licensed and searched as a complete group. For the COUNTER reporting is restricted to pre-set collections that are defined like “Databases”. See “Database”. Note a package or bundle provided by a publisher is not considered a “Database” or “Collection”.of a minimum of one journal issue; in printed form, volumes of more than one issue A collection A subset of the content of a service; a collection is a branded group of online information products from one or more content providers that can be subscribed to/licensed and searched as a complete group. For the COUNTER reporting is restricted to pre-set collections that are defined like “Databases”. See “Database”. Note a package or bundle provided by a publisher is not considered a “Database” or “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 printare 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 A subset of the content of a service; a collection is a branded group of online information products from one or more content providers that can be subscribed to/licensed and searched as a complete group. For the COUNTER reporting is restricted to pre-set collections that are defined like “Databases”. See “Database”. Note a package or bundle provided by a publisher is not considered a “Database” or “Collection”.of articles, chapters, or entries that is part of a larger, multi-volume work, either published together or seriallyis published. For the COUNTER “YOP” attribute, use the year of publication for the print when it differs from the online.for the “Version of Record”. If the year of publication Calendar year in which an “Article”, “Item”, “Issue” or volume Journals: Numbered collection A subset of the content of a service; a collection is a branded group of online information products from one or more content providers that can be subscribed to/licensed and searched as a complete group. For the COUNTER reporting is restricted to pre-set collections that are defined like “Databases”. See “Database”. Note a package or bundle provided by a publisher is not considered a “Database” or “Collection”.of a minimum of one journal issue; in printed form, volumes of more than one issue A collection A subset of the content of a service; a collection is a branded group of online information products from one or more content providers that can be subscribed to/licensed and searched as a complete group. For the COUNTER reporting is restricted to pre-set collections that are defined like “Databases”. See “Database”. Note a package or bundle provided by a publisher is not considered a “Database” or “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 printare 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 A subset of the content of a service; a collection is a branded group of online information products from one or more content providers that can be subscribed to/licensed and searched as a complete group. For the COUNTER reporting is restricted to pre-set collections that are defined like “Databases”. See “Database”. Note a package or bundle provided by a publisher is not considered a “Database” or “Collection”.of articles, chapters, or entries that is part of a larger, multi-volume work, either published together or seriallyis published. For the COUNTER “YOP” attribute, use the year of publication for the print when it differs from the online.is not known, use a value of 0001. For articles-in-press (not yet assigned to an issue), use the value 9999.

“E-Journal”

“eBook”

“eBook Collection”

“Multimedia”

“Multimedia Collection”

“Aggregated Full Content”

“A&I Database”

“Discovery Service”

“Repository”

“Data Repository”

“Scholarly Collaboration Network”

PR, TR, DR, IR

TR_B1, TR_B2, TR_J2,

3.3.8 Zero Usage

Not all content providers or other COUNTER report providers link their COUNTER reporting tool to their subscription database, so R5 reports cannot include zero-usage reporting based on subscription records. Inclusion of zero-usage reporting for everything, including unsubscribed content, could make reports unmanageably large. The need for libraries to identify subscribed titles with zero usage will be addressed by the “KBART-Automation for SUSHI An international standard (Z39-93) that describes a method for automating the harvesting of reports. COUNTER_SUSHI is an implementation of this standard for harvesting COUNTER reports. COUNTER compliance requires “Content Providers” to implement COUNTER_SUSHI.harvesting of BOTH usage and entitlements” initiative.

For tabular reports
- Omit any row where the Reporting Period The total time period covered in a usage report.Total would be zero.
- If the Reporting Period The total time period covered in a usage report.Total is >0, but usage for an included month is zero, set the cell value for that month to 0.
For SUSHI An international standard (Z39-93) that describes a method for automating the harvesting of reports. COUNTER_SUSHI is an implementation of this standard for harvesting COUNTER reports. COUNTER compliance requires “Content Providers” to implement COUNTER_SUSHI.version of reports
- Omit any “Instance” element with a count of zero.
- Omit “Performance” elements that don’t have at least one “Instance” element.
- Omit “ReportItems” elements that don’t have at least one “Performance” element.

3.3.9 Missing and Unknown Field Values

For tabular reports
- If a field value is missing or unknown (i.e. the ISBN The International Standard Book A non-serial publication of any length available in print (in hard or soft covers or in loose-leaf format) or in electronic format. A COUNTER “Data_Type”.Number (ISBN) is a unique 13-digit number used to identify a “Book”.for a title doesn’t exist or isn’t known), the field MUST be left blank. For clarity, the field MUST NOT contain values such as “unknown” or “n/a”.
For SUSHI An international standard (Z39-93) that describes a method for automating the harvesting of reports. COUNTER_SUSHI is an implementation of this standard for harvesting COUNTER reports. COUNTER compliance requires “Content Providers” to implement COUNTER_SUSHI.version of reports
- If the value of a field is missing or unknown and the COUNTER_SUSHI OpenAPI Specification (see Section 8 below) indicates the field is REQUIRED, the value of the field MUST be expressed as empty as appropriate for the data type.
- If the value of a field is missing or unknown and the field is not REQUIRED according to the COUNTER_SUSHI OpenAPI Specification, the field MUST be omitted from the response.

How to become Counter Compliant

All academic libraries across the world use and trust COUNTER usage reports to inform renewal and new purchasing decisions, to inform faculty about the value of the library and its resources and to understand user behaviour and improve the user experience.

Counter will help publishers and vendors to become compliant. The The Friendly Guide for Providers Release 5 and Technical Notes and will provide the information you will need to start the process. Content providers transitioning from Release 4 to Release 5 compliance will also find transition timeline useful in their planning.

Audit Process

To comply with the Code of Practice, publishers and vendors must be independently audited within six months of signing the Declaration of COUNTER Compliance, and annually thereafter.

There are three approved COUNTER auditors:

COUNTER will also accept an audit by any Chartered Accountant (UK), CPA (USA) or their equivalent elsewhere.

The COUNTER Code of Practice for Release 5.0.1

Appendix A: Glossary of Terms

Sections and Appendices »

Sections

Appendices

Appendices

Guides

3.0 Technical Specifications for COUNTER Reports

3.1 COUNTER Reports for Libraries

3.1.1 Master Reports

Table 1: Master Reports

3.1.2 Standard Views

3.1.2.1 Platform An interface from a “Content Provider” that delivers the content to the user A person who accesses the online resourceand that counts and provides the COUNTER usage reports.Usage Standard Views

3.1.2.2 Database Usage Standard Views

3.1.2.3 Title Usage Standard Views

3.2 Formats for COUNTER reports

3.2.1 Report Header

3.2.2 Report Body

3.3 COUNTER Report Common Attributes and Elements

3.3.1 Host Types

3.3.2 Data Types

3.3.3 Section Types

3.3.4 Metric Types

3.3.5 Access Types

3.3.6 Access Methods

3.3.7 YOP

3.3.8 Zero Usage

3.3.9 Missing and Unknown Field Values

How to become Counter Compliant

Audit Process

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