Join a COUNTER focus group

We are starting focus groups to gather the views of the COUNTER community on key topics. Our first groups will look at reporting to multiple identities, and how to report on generative AI usage. The first groups will take place in September and October – read on to find out how to join a focus group!

We published Release 5.1 of the COUNTER Code of Practice in 2023. Since then, community members have raised three issues that are partially but not completely covered by the existing Code. Syndicated usage was one of the topics. With the Technical Advisory Group, we developed some best practice guidance and this recently went out for community consultation. Look out for the revised guidance, which we’ll be publishing soon.

The second issue that have been raised so far is reporting to multiple identities. And the third issue raised is how to report on generative AI usage. We want to gather the widest possible set of views about these topics before developing our best practice guidance. To do this, we’ll be running focus groups that any COUNTER member can attend.

The projects

Reporting multi-identity usage

Publisher platforms often offer multiple authentication methods to end users. These might be IP recognition, GetFTR, Shibboleth, or username-and-password. Such approaches are great in terms of allowing a user to access content. However, they create an issue when a single user can be connected to more than one institution during their session. In our focus groups we aim to determine how the community as a whole would like this situation to be handled. We also want to develop fall-back positions for where this preferred outcome is not technically possible.

Generative AI

The introduction of GenAI technologies on publisher platforms is throwing up many questions about what can be counted, when, and why. Our focus groups will help COUNTER start to explore what is being built and how that interacts with our existing Code of Practice. We will also discuss how the community would like to see us address the questions of usage metrics for GenAI.

Get involved

We plan to run focus groups on these two topics through September and October. We will only ask you to attend one session of 90 minutes, with minimal pre-reading. If you are a member of COUNTER, sign up using this form to get involved. You can also use it to express interest in being part of a different focus group in the future.