WHAT IS COUNTER?
COUNTER stands for Counting Online Usage of Networked Electronic Resources. Their website is at http://www.projectcounter.org/.
COUNTER was one of the first, if not the first, standards organization established for the modern
information environment. It has succeeded in bringing together a collaboration of publishers and
librarians to develop and maintain a standard for counting the use of electronic resources. It has
also ensured that most major publishers and vendors are compliant by providing their library customers around the world with COUNTER usage statistics.
COUNTER publishes the Code of Practice, which is the standard for counting the use of electronic
resources, and maintains a register of COUNTER-compliant vendors and publishers. Release 5 of
the Code of Practice, which is the subject of this Friendly Guide, is subject to continuous maintenance. As the release changes, this guide will be updated.
WHO USES COUNTER REPORTS?
The COUNTER standard was originally developed to provide a service to librarians and others who
purchase subscriptions to publishers’ content. The intention was to allow librarians to easily com-
pare their usage across different publishers’ content, and let them use that information to calcu-
late a cost-per-download for their subscriptions. COUNTER reports were not originally intended to
be used by publishers as a way of measuring usage across their client base, but are increasingly
being used for that purpose.
Academic libraries across the world use COUNTER reports to:
- Help them make renewal decisions or new purchasing decisions based on data about
usage and access denials - Inform faculty about the value of the library and its resources
- Understand user behavior and improve user experiences.
Most major vendors and publishers also use COUNTER reports to:
- Provide reliable and consistent usage data to their customers
- Upsell using COUNTER data about access denials
- Inform editors and authors about the usage of their publications
Where to Access Your COUNTER Report:
You can access your COUNTER reports from two places within the admin portal. For product specific COUNTER reports, you can access it from the product level navigation.
To access your COUNTER 4 report for all products that you subscribe to click on the COUNTER Reports tab on the left-hand navigation.
COUNTER 4 Report Types:
DB1 (Database Report) -
This report is labelled by COUNTER as 'total searches, results clicks and record views by month and database.'
What's in and what's out:
| Included | Excluded |
| Manual | Searches |
| Federated Searches | A search made from a discovery or partner service |
| Search result clicks | Journal article lists (e.g. issue contents) |
| Metadata views | Multimedia |
| Databases | Supplementary files |
| Books | |
| Book parts (chapters) |
**Note: The History Cross Search product will only be available as an inline product in the summary COUNTER overview report - accessed on the COUNTER tab in the left-hand navigation.
DB1 Reports are available for all streaming video and database products.
MR1 (Multimedia Report) -
This report is labeled by COUNTER as 'number of successful full multimedia content unit requests by month and collection.'
Things to note:
MR1 is used to report on usage of standalone multimedia items. Usage of multimedia items which are part of another content unit (e.g viewing a video which is a supplementary file for a journal article) is not counted for the purposed of MR1.
When a user requests a page which displays or plays a standalone multimedia file of any type (e.g image, video, PDF, interactive) the publisher's reporting database will record that page view for use in the MR1. The usage will be shown in the columns for Reporting Period Total and the relevant calendar month.
What's in and what's out:
| Included | Excluded |
| Multimedia | Books |
| Book parts (chapters) | |
| Journal article metadata | |
| Journal article lists (e.g. issue contents) | |
| Journal article full-text | |
| Supplementary files | |
| Databases | |
| Searches | |
| Search result clicks |
MR1 Reports are available for all streaming video and database products.
BR1 (Book Report) -
This report is labeled by COUNTER as 'number of successful title requests by month and by title' and as such is explicitly used for reporting on book content (this includes reference works). It is only to be used when books are delivered in their entirety.
What's in and what's out:
| Included | Excluded |
| Whole books | Book parts (chapters) |
| Journal article metadata | |
| Journal article lists (e.g. issue contents) | |
| Journal article full-text | |
| Multimedia | |
| Supplementary files | |
| Databases | |
| Searches | |
| Search result clicks |
BR1 Reports are available for eBooks.
CR2 (Consortium Report) -
Consortium reports were designed to allow consortia to see usage information from
all member institutions in a single report.
CR2 covers 'total searches by month and database' for a consortium. It is a variant of DB1.
CR2 is available for all consortia accounts.
COUNTER4 Metrics:
The COUNTER4 reporting standards utilizes the following metrics in its reports, which in most cases are very different from historical Infobase reports.
- Record View - These report the number of times the main article, video, image, audio file, interactive, etc, are viewed within the resource, irrespective of whether these records were reached from a set of search/browse results or via a link from an external source. Clicking on main navigational items or any index pages that do not load a piece content do NOT count as record views.
- Result Click -These report the number of times that users click on results from a given resource from the result list displayed by a search action.
- Regular Search - A user-driven intellectual query, typically equated to submitting the search form of the online service to the server
- Federated Search - A search made from a discovery or partner service.
COUNTER5 Report Types
Platform Reports
PR (Platform Master Report)
A customizable report summarizing activity across a content provider’s platforms that allows the user to apply filters and select other configuration options.
PR_P1 (Platform Usage)
Platform-level usage summarized by metric type. The report shows total and unique item requests, unique title requests, and platform searches.
Database Reports
DR (Database Master Report)
A customizable report detailing activity by database that allows the user to apply filters and select other configuration options.
DR_D1 (Database Search and Item Usage)
Reports on key searches, investigations and requests metrics needed to evaluate a database. The report shows regular and federated searches, and total item investigations and requests.
Title Reports
TR (Title Master Report)
A customizable report detailing activity at the title level (journal, book, etc.) that allows the user to apply filters and select other configuration options.
TR_B1 (Book Requests (Excluding OA_Gold)
Reports on full-text activity for books, excluding Gold Open Access content, as total item requests and unique title requests. Numbers between sites will vary based on whether the content is delivered as a complete book or by chapter.
Item Reports
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 to apply filters and select other configuration options.
IR_M1 (Multimedia Item Requests)
Reports on multimedia requests at the item level.
COUNTER5 Metrics
Requests: A category of COUNTER Metric Types that represents a user accessing content (i.e. full text of an article).
Investigations: 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).
Requests are recorded where record views were recorded in COUNTER4, and are also treated as investigations.
‘Total_Item_Requests’ represents the number of times users requested the full content (i.e. full text) of an item.
‘Unique_Item_Requests’ represents the number of unique content items investigated in a user-session. Examples of items are articles, book chapters, and multimedia files.
‘Unique_Title_Requests’ represents the number of unique titles requested in a user session. Examples of titles are journals and books.
‘Total_Item_Investigations’ represents the total number of times a content item or information related to a content item was accessed.
‘Unique_Item_Investigations’ represents the number of unique Content Items investigated in a user-session.
‘Unique_Title_Investigations’ represents the number of unique titles requested in a user session. Examples of titles are journals and books.
Consortia Access and COUNTER5
In COUNTER5, separate consortium reports are not provided. Consortium administrators can access R5 reports for their members using the All Accounts dropdown that is available from the COUNTER reports section of the admin portal. Clicking on the member account name will take the consortium administrator to that account’s COUNTER5 reports without having to sign in for each individual institution.