Have your say: optimising for OA

Libraries are under pressure to shift to OA while at the same time increase their reliance on data driven decision making. One key challenge is that the shift to open is decreasing library visibility over usage, both within their institutions (for all content) and globally (for content they have funded). This consultation aims to establish a framework of best practices for collecting and reporting usage data related to open access (OA) publications, building on existing inputs such as Release 5.1 and the OA friendly guide, to help address that challenge. 

The impact of agentic and generative AI usage is out of scope: COUNTER has a separate AI working group tackling this issue.

Our working group has put together a series of mechanisms to tackle different parts of the OA usage metrics challenge. Let us know how viable and valuable you think the options are by responding to the consultation form. We’ll be tracking all feedback into consideration as part of our revision and publication process. The form will stay open until the 27th of September, after the OASPA conference.

What’s in the proposals?

We’ve identified five key challeges in OA reporting, with recommendations tied to each of them.

• Challenge one is global reporting. OA materials are frequently accessed from outside of institutional authentication mechanisms, meaning usage cannot be tied to an institution. When paying for OA, libraries want to understand the global impact of the work, as well as or instead of the usage within their institution.
• Challenge two is linking metadata. There is no current mechanism linking DOIs in COUNTER reports to a specific institution, making it difficult for publishers to report on usage of the content for which an institution has paid an OA fee (regardless of business model).
• Challenge three is syndicated usage. OA materials are frequently available on multiple platforms, meaning the publisher’s reports will not provide a full picture of usage. Our existing Syndicated Usage guidelines identify safe, privacy-protective mechanisms for exchanging usage data between a syndication platform and the original publisher, as well as one-click mechanisms for filtering syndicated usage out of resulting COUNTER reports.
• Challenge four is inclusion and accessibility. Some OA publishers are very small and lack resources to make COUNTER reporting viable. That’s where we see a role for the recently published Pathway to Compliance.
• Challenge five is education. COUNTER is confusing! Alongside the eventual OA best practice, we’ll have to significantly revise and extend the Friendly Guide to OA.

Thanks to our OA working group

Huge thanks to the volunteers on our open access working group:

• Annika Lindh, Maynooth University
• Cesar Nieto, MDPI
• Dominic Mitchell, DOAJ
• Emily Hazzard, Silverchair
• Emily Ray, University of North Florida
• Hannah Heckman, University of South Carolina
• Jason Kraft, American Society for Microbiology
• Kelsey Mrjoian, University of Michigan Press
• Malavika Legge, OASPA
• Matthew Ragucci, Wiley
• Melanie Marcon, INIST
• Stuart Maxwell, Scholarly iQ
• Thomas Shaw, Open Journals Collective