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E-Journals. c.spencer@ncl.ac.uk. Manchester 2006. Three main stages …. > Downloading the data > Analysis – trends, costs KPIs > Reporting – graphs, tables. Today …. Follow handout www.lib-stats.org.uk Workshop Guide (NO password this week) Download files (right click – save target as)
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E-Journals c.spencer@ncl.ac.uk Manchester 2006
Three main stages … > Downloading the data > Analysis – trends, costs KPIs > Reporting – graphs, tables
Today … • Follow handout • www.lib-stats.org.uk • Workshop Guide (NO password this week) • Download files (right click – save target as) • Normally from web form: e.g. http://usagereports.elsevier.com/asp/main.aspx
To committee report… … empirical evidence based on usage data suggests we should cancel our “Big Deal” subscription to Science Direct …!
Problems • Publishers (vendors), Gateways, Agents Aggregators and Hosts all potentially provide stats, but who counts what? Check COUNTER • At Ncl Users can download from any of these • Do we need to collect stats from all these sources and merge together? – Sometimes! • Merging script needed
Multiple Stats - What to Count Users can download articles from any of these service providers…
Problems • Agents’ subscribed lists may not match publishers’ lists! • Cf Swets and Blackwells – • Agents’ downloaded data in different format to publishers – merging script needed • Downloaded data may include third party subscriptions – error - need to filter
Spurious data! NPG reports usage, but we didn’t subscribe ‘till 2005!
Gathering the Data - Preparation • In 2003 JTR secured limited funding for one person to investigate the collection of usage data for Newcastle’s e-journals. Sadly there was little time for planning as pressure to provide evidence of value mounted. In an ideal world need to plan 3 months’ ahead – Project Manager and small team to assist in the process • I completely underestimated how long it would take just to get passwords sorted, let alone collect the data!
Gathering the Data – Project Management • Overall Strategy - decision making - Ideally a team effort, where activities are broken down to match skills • Decide what to collect – COUNTER only for e-j,s, database, e-books, portal stats, Institutional Repository, Open Access • Whole process very time consuming and costly!
Team Skills • Good training is the key – see UKSG • Clear communication essential • Good IT – spreadsheets/databases/web • Numerate – calculation of costs etc, Statistics knowledge useful • Able to convert stats into management reports
Who does what? • Obtaining the data • Responsibility for the operational aspects; weekly/monthly or quarterly downloads • maintaining on-line passwords, liaise with others in library • dealing with queries – who will have access to the data? e.g. “Hi Cliff, Any chance of some usage stats on the three titles below before I have to sell my children into slavery to resubscribe this year?”
Who does what • Organising the data • What format • Storage - Spreadsheet or Database - Backup • Housed with other types of library stats, e.g. Include subscription data, need to liaise with others • Output – Reports - Library Management System for analysis?
Who does what • Analysis • By package, individual titles or subject • Key Performance Indicators • Report generation • Monthly/Quarterly/Yearly returns • Trend analysis
Qualitative V Quantitative • Newcastle is a quantitative study of e-journal data i.e based on numbers. Lots of criticism for not having a parallel qualitative study which measures value through focus groups – i.e. words. Beware very time consuming to set up and process results.
Downloading the data • Most COUNTER sites allow you to download through a web form. COUNTER does not set standards for the type of interface. Cf: Elsevier, Wiley, Swets etc • All require login and password. May have dozens of these, and they can change so need to manage this.
Downloading the data • Reports are downloaded monthly and reported quarterly/yearly - e-mail alerts to those who want them • Separate folders for each “vendor” • Excel (.csv) used for initial download, and exported to any other platform – database driven web pages soon • Yearly summation – Jan-Dec – Reports • KPI,s populated from stats
File types - .CSV most flexible As NCL moves to database rather than spreadsheet application – .XML is the way to go.
What’s the most useful data? • Don’t know! This is a decision for each library, but our list of KPI,s may help • I believe our initiative to Benchmark across several libraries nationwide may be very beneficial in answering this question. See later • It may be that we need publishers to provide more data than we already have.
Automated Data Collection • Downloading statistics manually from each individual vendor is time consuming and costly to administrate • Web services and data streaming (already common in on-line shopping) can help • All automated services will be expensive!
SUSHI (Yummy!) • “The goal of the group is to devise a protocol/web service for the automated collection of COUNTER statistics from the publishers. Initiate the calls to the publishers using a web service, to log in, to request the COUNTER report (JR1 for now), to retrieve the report (payload) and then load it into the local ERM system.” Ted Koppel Verde Product Manager
And MPS offers… A single point of access for all your vendor usage statistics • Consolidation. View and analyze usage statistics across platforms in the consolidated journal and database report.Dashboard Analysis. Analyze usage statistics at a glance with the ScholarlyStats Dashboard Reports.Collection. Find all vendor usage data in one place with easy access to your raw vendor reports.Archive. Access historical usage statistics reports for year-on-year usage analysis.Administration. Assemble and administer all usage statistics vendor access details in one place.Access for your library staff. Provide you library staff with access to your usage statistics
In Future … • Web Services Technology will automate data collection - SUSHI • All stats through in-house portal • Local XML Database with all relevant data • National Database to compare usage
Results from SFX Portal How do these tally with stats from vendors?
Swets V Kluwer Q. Why are there so many extra titles in the Kluwer list? Are these down to e+print titles, or are, some recent additions not acknowledged by Swets?
More Problems! • Journals changing publisher – how to track? • Free e+print. Sometimes extra titles appear which are not listed in a package. Check to see if these are bundled (free) as part of a print sub. Two journals currently published by Blackwell Publishing and accessible through Blackwell Synergy are transferring to Nature Publishing Group from 2006 -- Kidney International and Journal of Investigative Dermatology
Usage? • Usage data is derived from an a activity. A user “clicking” on an internet web link to download information constitutes a measurable and observable statistic. How many clicks in the last scenario, and how many activities? Luckily computers are good at record keeping! • Beware synonyms: for Click read download, abstract, page view, chapter, hits, searches,TOC, turnaway etc. • Need to be sure what we are counting – enter Project COUNTER – a standard to ensure that we are measuring the same kinds of data from each publisher. Without this standardisation our analysis would not be credible. Not all data however is COUNTER complaint – do we still count this?
Online-Research • Consider for a moment how complicated collecting usage data is • I log onto my desktop, e-mail reveals a TOC about a new chemistry journal issue. This has a link to the publisher’s web site – abstract but no full text. I log into the library portal to check journal rights – full text but only via Open Access and not available for three months. I decide to get article from BL via e-ill, set up a transaction, downloaded to desktop in pdf format – no interactive chemical structure in pdf so go to on line Sci finder database to check. Disagree with paper’s conclusions so decide to e-mail author and check credentials on CAS database. Download full text of other papers I discover while browsing …
