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Subject: [BOAI] Interoperable repositories: usage statistics
From: "Peter Suber"
Date: Sun, November 20, 2005 8:17 pm
To: SPARC-OAForum@arl.org
boai-forum@ecs.soton.ac.uk
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Friends in India and the Developing World:
It would be in our interest in taking part in this new exercise. Please
read on.
Arun
A major study is underway now to develop a pilot service to collect,
analyse and feed back usage statistics for interoperable repositories
worldwide. The project is funded by JISC in the UK, and is led by Dr Les
Carr at Southampton University, in partnership with the University of
Tasmania, Long Island University and Key Perspectives Ltd.
The project outline is as follows: download data are being logged by every
repository as a by-product of the Web requests they receive. These raw
data are being turned into useful download statistics for individual
papers and users by a few institutional repositories (e.g. University of
Tasmania, Southampton University), thematic repositories (e.g. RePEc) and
OAI services (e.g. Citebase). However, there is no consensus over what
data need to be collected, what filtering mechanisms are appropriate, and
what analyses are useful for academics in various disciplines. To create
effective research statistics services, an interoperable usage statistics
service will be created for all OAI-PMH-compliant repositories. This
project will
investigate the requirements for UK and international stakeholders and
build generic collection and distribution software for all IRs. The
approach will be demonstrated by a pilot statistics analysis service
modelled as an OAI service provider. Working with partners experienced in
analysis of usage statistics for electronic documents, and an
international consultative committee of key OAI archive and service
managers, the principal
deliverables will be:
- An API for gathering download data implemented for common IR platforms -
A set of agreed standards defining the basis for measuring and reporting
usage of materials deposited in IRs and aggregated with data from other
sources where such materials can be found.
The research to establish user requirements for the new service is just
approaching completion. It has consisted of a series of focus groups and
individual interviews with researchers and repository managers around the
world and will provide the basic spec upon which the software is
developed. Before this phase is finally wound up, I would be interested in
hearing from any researchers, repository managers, gateway managers or
service providers who have views on what kind of usage statistics would be
useful to them or their constituency. Replies on or off list would be very
welcome.
Alma Swan
Key Perspectives Ltd
Truro, UK
