STM/COUNTER Seminar
Usage Statistics and Publishers: Implementation and New Insights
Who should attend?
Anyone involved in the publishing, marketing and sales of online journals, books and databases who is interested in quantitative measures of product performance, impact and status.
Usage-based measures of value, status and impact
COUNTER usage reports are already well established among librarians as essential tools for assessing the value of the journals and other online products in their collections. But there is another, growing area of activity that is gaining in importance as the body of reliable, COUNTER-compliant usage data increases and as usage statistics feature more prominently in assessments of the value, status an impact of online publications. This area may be termed 'usage bibliometrics' and COUNTER is working actively with other organizations on the development of new, usage-based measures of value, status and impact. ISI's journal Impact Factors, based on citation data, have become generally accepted as a measure of the quality of scholarly journals, and are widely used by publishers, authors, funding agencies and librarians. There are, nevertheless, misgivings about an over-reliance on Impact Factor alone in this respect. The availability of the majority of significant scholarly journals online, combined with the availability of a growing body of reliable COUNTER-compliant online usage statistics, raises the possibility of a parallel usage-based measure of journal performance becoming a viable additional metric.
About the Workshop
This workshop will look at the usage-based metric tools already developed by COUNTER for measuring the performance of online publications as well as the potential of emerging usage-based tools to provide insights into research performance of individuals and institutions. Important questions the Workshop will address include:
What should we measure?
Technology continues its relentless march and the way the usage of online publications is recorded and reported must take this into account; what was a meaningful metric 5 years ago may no longer be meaningful in the emerging technology environment.
How much can we expect publishers to invest in recording and reporting usage?
We live in an age were our capacity to generate data is almost infinite, while our capacity to absorb and interpret data is limited by time and resources. Generating, collecting, processing and storing data is a costly process and all stakeholder groups involved must be convinced that the exercise is one in which the benefits justify the costs.
What performance metrics can be derived from usage statistics?
Many librarians already routinely calculate 'cost-per-download' and 'cost-per-FTE' and these have become helpful barometers of the value, or otherwise, of individual titles or collection of titles. There are other, usage-based metrics that are also being considered. Journal Usage Factor is one. ISI's journal Impact Factors, based on citation data, have become generally accepted as a valid measure of the quality of scholarly journals, and are widely used by publishers, authors, funding agencies and librarians as measures of journal quality. There are nevertheless, misgivings about an over-reliance on Impact Factor alone in this respect.
|
9:30 - 10:30 |
Registration & Coffee |
|
10:30 - 11:00 |
Whence COUNTER? |
|
11:00 - 11:30 |
New COUNTER-based metrics? The Journal Usage factor and other metrics based on COUNTER statistics |
|
11:30 - 12:00 |
COUNTER: a publisher perspective |
|
12:00 - 12:30 |
MPS Librarian Survey on Usage Statistics |
|
12:30 - 1:15 |
Lunch |
|
1:15 - 1:45 |
COUNTER: a librarian perspective 1: a strategic view |
|
1:45 - 2:15 |
COUNTER: a librarian persective 2: using the statistics Tansy Matthews, VIVA, the Virtual Library of Virginia
|
|
2:15 - 3:15 |
Whither COUNTER? |
|
3:15 |
Close |
Registration Fee
After 17 February 2011
Members: €160 €180
Non-Members: €205 €225
Please check back for updated programme information.
Events Terms and Conditions
Cancellation
Where an event has registration fees, cancellations made in writing up to 30 days before an event are eligible for a 50% refund. No refunds can be made for cancellations received on or after 30 days prior to the event date, however, substitutions may be made free of charge at any time.
Insurance
Registration fees do not include insurance. Participants are advised to take out adequate personal insurance to cover travel, accommodation, cancellation and personal effects.