CODE OF PRACTICE
COUNTER exists to bring the knowledge community together to agree and adopt the global standard for measuring and reporting content usage through normalised metrics, and we do that by developing, maintaining and extending the Code of Practice.
On this page you’ll find links to Release 5.1 (the current Code), Release 5 (the previous Code, required until March 2025), and the Code of Practice for Research Data (the current Code for data repositories).
We also have archival copies of old Codes available at the bottom of the page for those who are interested in reading them, as well as a page listing tools and services that you might find helpful.
When to expect Release 5.1 reports
If you are looking for information about when report providers and publishers will be making R5.1 reports available, there’s a detailed post on our news page at countermetrics.org/when-r51/. The key points are
- Report providers are required to start delivering R5.1 reports for usage that happens in January 2025. The Code has always allowed four weeks for processing data, which means that we expect to see all providers delivering the new reports by the 28th of February 2025.
- As providers set their R5.1 COUNTER API (sushi) services live, we will be updating the COUNTER Registry with that information and a notification. Please visit registry.countermetrics.org/notifications to see the latest information.
Current Codes of Practice
Release 5 of the Code of Practice was published in 2017 with compliance required from January 2019. Report providers must offer Release 5-compliant reports for reporting periods until March 2025. The current iteration, Release 5.0.3, can be read in full on Read the Docs.
Release 5.1 of the COUNTER Code of Practice was published in 2022 with compliance required for reporting periods from January 2025. The current iteration is Release 5.1.0.1, the full text of which is freely available on Read the Docs. There are Friendly Guides and other materials for Release 5.1 on our Education pages.
The Code of Practice for Research Data was published in 2018 and is designed
for use by research data repositories
Tools and Services
The COUNTER community has developed several tools and services which you may find useful, and we keep a list of them on the Tools and Services page. If you know of other free tools or services that we should add, please get in touch with tasha@countermetrics.org.
Archived Codes of Practice
If you are interested in older versions of the COUNTER Code of Practice, you can find them here. Please note that any reports that claim compliance with these older versions of the Code of Practice are not COUNTER-compliant.