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    360 Counter: Introduction and Overview

    • Product: 360 Counter

    What is 360 Counter, and how does it work?

    The 360 Counter service is an assessment tool designed to help your library aggregate and meaningfully analyze usage statistics from e-resource providers. Use 360 Counter to make sense out of this data and make decisions for your library by answering questions like:
    • Which subscriptions should we keep?
    • Which titles or databases can be cancelled?
    • Which databases provide the best return on investment?
    360 Counter is built upon the schema put forth by Project COUNTER, the organizing body that is mandated to manage standards and protocols governing the recording and exchange of online usage data.
    360 Counter is designed to accept Project-COUNTER-compliant usage data from your vendors, and as such will represent all the usage your library has recorded with them through any of the interfaces you offer to your patrons, including ProQuest discovery services as well as native interfaces.
    In contrast, 360 Usage Statistics tracks the usage your patrons make of your discovery products, including as the E-Journal Portal, OpenURL queries from 360 Link, 360 Search, and -- for clients using our hosted 856 URLs in 360 MARC Updates -- your OPAC.
    The rest of this document is divided into four sections:
    After you've read the rest of this document and you're ready to begin working with 360 Counter, go to Getting Started with 360 Counter.

    How 360 Counter Works

    The process of consolidating usage statistics from COUNTER-compliant vendors involves three steps:
    1. Retrieve Reports from Information Providers: Project-COUNTER-compliant usage-statistics reports can be retrieved and uploaded to 360 Counter by the Data Retrieval Service (DRS) -- either via SUSHI-protocol harvesting or administration-based harvesting -- if you provide us with sufficient credentials to log into the providers' systems. Non-COUNTER-compliant reports must be retrieved and uploaded by you. See also this list of COUNTER-compliant reports supported by 360 Counter.

    2. Validate Usage Data: When a usage report has been uploaded into 360 Counter, it passes through several cycles where the data and format of the report is checked, synthesized and made available in the reporting interface, Intota Assessment. This usage data upload process is completed weekly.

    3. View Your Usage Reports: Once your uploaded data has been consolidated, you can view your newly aggregated usage data using the statistical and graphical display tools in consolidated usage and cost reports available on the Intota Assessment platform.


    About Project COUNTER

    Project COUNTER is a non-profit organization, headquartered in the U.K., that manages the definition of standards and processes for e-resource providers who provide e-resource usage reports.

    Project COUNTER also audits information vendors so that they may call themselves "COUNTER Compliant." This list of compliant vendors is updated every two months on the Project COUNTER website.

    Project COUNTER's stated objective is "to ensure that vendor online usage reports are credible, compatible, and consistent. This is achieved by the publication of Codes of Practice that specify the content, format, delivery mechanisms, and data processing rules for a set of core usage reports that are easily implemented by vendors and easily understood by librarians."

    The Project COUNTER website also has many other helpful documents, including sample reports and a glossary of terms specific to Project COUNTER.


    Data Retrieval Service

    The Data Retrieval Service (DRS) is a service that retrieves, cleans, and uploads your COUNTER-compliant usage data into 360 Counter, based on a predetermined upload schedule.

    When you set up your DRS with ProQuest, you'll tell us which reports you want uploaded and provide us with credentials to log into the providers' systems to retrieve your usage-statistics reports.

     

    • DRS can only upload reports from providers that are in your Data Management list of subscribed databases.

    • This is a legacy service and is no longer available to new subscribers.