May 29th, 2013

The Optical Society and Scholarly iQ Issue
COUNTER Release 4 Compliant Usage Reports for OSA’s Journals

WASHINGTON, May 29, 2013—The Optical Society (OSA) and Scholarly iQ today announced that OSA’s usage statistics for its portfolio of peer-reviewed journals have been upgraded and are now available using the new COUNTER Release 4 (R4) standards. These new standards, like the ones already in place, have been accepted by the scientific publishing industry worldwide and govern the recording and exchange of online usage data. The new COUNTER 4 reports are the latest set of usage reports that can be used by librarians to ensure the independent and accurate reporting of publishers’ usage statistics.

“In today’s challenging economic market, ensuring that trusted, independent reporting of usage statistics of both our subscription-based and Gold Open Access journals is available to libraries is critical to OSA, as this data is used to effectively demonstrate the on-going value of our content,” said OSA’s Deputy Executive Director and Chief Publishing Officer Elizabeth Nolan. “We’re pleased to have been one of the first to partner with Scholarly iQ on the launch of the new COUNTER R4 standard as we are always looking for ways to better meet the needs of the scholarly library community.”

The COUNTER Release 4 standards contain the following new features and focus on improving the delivery of consistent, credible and comparable usage statistics:

• A single, integrated Code of Practice covering journals, databases, books, reference works and multimedia content.
• The ability to report usage of Gold Open Access articles separately via the new “Journal Report 1 GOA.”
• An expanded “Journal Report 2,” which includes information on denied-access content and unlicensed content, in addition to the “Turnaways” data, which is covered by earlier COUNTER Releases.
• A modified “Journal Report 5,” which reports on the usage of full-text article requests by year and by journal from a library’s acquired archival content.
• A new multimedia report, which covers the usage of non-textual multimedia resources, such as audio, video and images.
• The ability to look at usage statistics for specified date ranges depending on the library’s needs.
• “The academic publishing market is becoming increasingly online and data driven,” said Gary Van Overborg, CEO and founder, Scholarly iQ. “The COUNTER R4 standard provides trust and accountability in understanding the business value of digital products. Supporting and adhering to these latest standards is a must, and we are delighted to be working with OSA at this tremendously exciting time.”