Publisher & Institutional Repository Usage Statistics 2 (PIRUS2)
Background
The PIRUS project, funded under JISC's PALS Metadata and Interoperability programme, demonstrated that it is technically feasible to create, record and consolidate usage statistics for individual articles using data from repositories and publishers, despite the diversity of organizational and technical environments in which they operate. If this is to be translated into a new, implementable COUNTER standard and protocol, further research and development will be required, specifically in the following areas:
- Technical: further tests, with a wider range of repositories and a larger volume of data, will be required to ensure that the proposed protocols and tracker codes are scalable/extensible and work in the major repository environments.
- Organisational: the nature and mission of the central clearing house/houses proposed by PIRUS has to be developed, and candidate organizations identified and tested.
- Economic: assess the costs for repositories and publishers of generating the required usage reports, as well as the costs of any central clearing house/houses; investigate how these costs could be allocated between stakeholders.
- Political: the broad support of all the major stakeholder groups (repositories, publishers, authors) will be required. Subject repositories, such as PubMed Central, which have not been active participants at this stage in the project, will have to be brought on board. Intellectual property, privacy and financial issues will have to be addressed.
The PIRUS2 project will address these issues and by doing so specify standards, protocols, an infrastructure and an economic model for the recording, reporting and consolidation of online usage of individual articles hosted by repositories, publishers and other entities.
Aims and objectives
The aim of the PIRUS2 Project is to enhance the UK Information Environment by enabling publishers, repositories and other organizations to generate and share authoritative, trustworthy usage statistics for the individual articles and other items that they host.
In order to achieve this overall aim, the project will seek to meet the following main objectives:
- Develop a suite of free, open source programmes to support the generation and sharing of COUNTER compliant usage data and statistics that can be extended to cover any and all individual items in IRs and SRs.
- Develop a prototype article level Publisher/IR statistics service.
- Define a core set of standard useful statistical reports that repositories could/should produce for internal and external consumption.
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Documentation
Project Plan
Lead Institution
- MIMAS, University of Manchester
Partner Institutions
Project Staff
Project Director
Project Manager