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For Publisher usage statistics please visit our Publisher Support Site for information about generating usage for Journal Publishers and Books at JSTOR Publisher Reports.
About COUNTER Release 5 on JSTOR
JSTOR offers COUNTER Release 5 reports compliant with the COUNTER Code of Practice and verified by an independent audit. COUNTER 5 reports are available for usage beginning January 2019.
What is COUNTER?
Project COUNTER is a standardizing body that issues a Code of Practice for use by publishers and content providers to count usage so that libraries can evaluate use in consistent ways across electronic resource platforms. The JSTOR platform offers COUNTER Release 5 (R5) compliant reports, verified via a COUNTER audit.
Want to learn more? The COUNTER organization has created a Friendly Guide to Release 5 for Librarians, and it contains detailed information about report types, metrics, definitions, and other common questions. The information on this support page will explain more about what these metrics and definitions mean in the context of JSTOR usage.
Project COUNTER has also created a video series of Release 5 Foundation classes.
Accessing JSTOR and Artstor COUNTER reports for your library
COUNTER R5 reports are available through the usage statistics service on the COUNTER 5 page in JSTOR Admin and JSTOR’s SUSHI service. If you already have an personal account with access to usage statistics, you don't need to create a new one to access COUNTER 5.
To request a one-time report:
- Log into JSTOR Admin with a personal account that has administrative permissions.
- Not an admin yet? See Accessing JSTOR Admin to get started.
- Open the Reports drop-down menu in the JSTOR Admin sidebar and select COUNTER 5.
- Click the Create Report button.
- If applicable, select a Platform, JSTOR or Artstor.
- Under Type, select "One-time".
- Configure your report options including:
- Report
- Report format
- Date range
- Report name
- Email address to notify when the report is ready
- Once you've made your selections, click the Continue button.
- Confirm your report configuration and submit your request by clicking the Submit button or click the Back button to make additional changes.
If there are no errors, you'll receive a success message noting that you'll be emailed when the report is available for download in the Reports area of JSTOR Admin.
Scheduling reports
To schedule reports for automatic delivery:
- Log into JSTOR Admin with a personal account that has administrative permissions.
- Not an admin yet? See Accessing JSTOR Admin to get started.
- Open the Reports drop-down menu in the JSTOR Admin sidebar and select COUNTER 5.
- Click the Create Report button.
- If applicable, select a Platform, JSTOR or Artstor.
- Under Type, select "Scheduled".
- Configure your report options including:
- Report
- Report format
- Report name
- Email address to notify when the report is ready
- Once you've made your selections, click the Continue button.
- Confirm your report configuration and submit your request by clicking the Submit button or click the Back button to make additional changes.
Scheduled reports will be delivered on the first or second day following the completed month of reporting. For example, your April report will be delivered at the beginning of May. Scheduled reports don't expire but can be deleted.
You'll find your scheduled reports on the Scheduled Reports tab.
Report types available
For more information about these reports and what they measure, see COUNTER 5’s Friendly Guide to Release 5 for Librarians. Below are the reports available, with their corresponding definitions as provided by the COUNTER 5 Code of Practice.
Master reports
| Report ID | Report Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| DR | Database Master Report | A customizable report that offers usage on all metrics and content types for JSTOR, including full-text usage, investigations, searches, and turnaways, and includes federated searches. |
| IR | Item Master Report |
A customizable report that offers usage of multimedia on the selected platform (JSTOR or Artstor). Usage is shown at the individual item level. This report includes usage of Artstor's licensed and open collections and Shared Collections contributed content. |
| PR | Platform Master Report | A customizable report that offers usage on all metrics and content types for the selected platform (JSTOR or Artstor), including full-text usage, investigations, platform searches, excluding federated searches. |
| TR | Title Master Report | A customizable report that offers detailed usage at the title level for books, journals, research reports, and primary sources on JSTOR. |
Standard views
| Report ID | Report Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| DR_D1 | Database Report 1 | Reports on key Searches, Investigations, and Requests metrics on JSTOR. |
| DR_D2 | Database Report 2 | Reports on users that were denied access because their institution did not have a license for that content item on JSTOR. |
| IR_M1 | Multimedia Item Requests | Reports on multimedia requests on the selected platform (JSTOR or Artstor) at the item level. |
| PR_P1 | Platform Report 1 | Reports on all usage on the selected platform (JSTOR or Artstor) summarized by Metric_Type. |
| TR_B1 | Book Requests, Excluding OA_Gold* | Reports on full-text activity for JSTOR ebooks, excluding Gold Open Access content, as Total_Item_Requests and Unique_Title_Requests. Item_Requests are captured at the chapter level on JSTOR. |
| TR_B2 | Book Access Denied | Reports on Access Denied activity for JSTOR ebooks where users were denied access because their institution did not have a license. |
| TR_B3 | Book Usage by Access Type | Reports on JSTOR ebook usage showing all applicable Metric_Types broken down by Access_Type. |
| TR_J1 | Journal Requests, Excluding OA_Gold* | Shows usage of JSTOR journal content, excluding Gold Open Access content, as Total_Item_Requests and Unique_Item_Requests. |
| TR_J2 | Journal Access Denied | Reports on Access Denied activity for JSTOR journal content where users were denied access because their institution did not have a license for the title. |
| TR_J3 | Journal Usage by Access Type | Reports on usage of JSTOR journal content for all Metric_Types broken down by Access_Type. |
| TR_4 | Journal Requests by YOP, Excluding OA_Gold* | Breaks down the usage of journal content, excluding Gold Open Access content, by year of publication (YOP), providing counts for Total_Item_Requests and Unique_Item_Requests. Provides the details necessary to analyze usage of content in backfiles or current content subscriptions on JSTOR. |
*These reports will still include JSTOR Open Access usage. OA_Gold is a separate metric type that is excluded from these reports.
Additional reports
- Consortium Report (CR_C1): Custom COUNTER report that facilitates viewing of Release 5 metrics for all consortia members in a single report. The metrics include full-access usage, searches, and turnaways.
Key terms and metrics
Certain metrics will measure specific kinds of user behavior. For instance, downloading a PDF and viewing a full text article (without downloading) will both be recorded as the R5 metric: “item request.”
Most key terms and definitions are available in the Friendly Guide to Release 5 for Librarians. See the chart below for a description of how JSTOR has implemented support for COUNTER 5 metrics.
User actions mapped to COUNTER 5 metrics
| JSTOR user action | Common page(s) | R5 metric |
|---|---|---|
| Download a PDF | Search results, full-text article, chapter, report page | Item_Requests |
| View an image, download an image, compare images | Image page | Item_Requests |
| View full-text article, chapter, report | Article page, chapter page, report page | Item_Requests |
| Download book epub | Book TOC (when available) | Item_Requests (Book level) |
| View article, report page - no access | Unauthenticated access / abstract view of article page, report page | Item_Investigations, No_License |
| View image page - no access | Unauthenticated access / image preview | Item_Investigations, No_License |
| View book chapter - no access (redirect to TOC) | Unauthenticated access / abstract view attempt of book chapter | No_License, Item_Investigations |
| View book TOC - no access, (no redirect from chapter) | Unauthenticated access (not logged in)/ abstract view of book TOC | No_License, Item_Investigations |
| Basic Search | Home page, Topic page, Theme page, Global nav bar | Searches_Regular, Searches_Platform |
| Advanced Search | Advanced Search | Searches_Regular, Searches_Platform |
| Image Search | Image search, Workspace compare image search | Searches_Regular, Searches_Platform |
| Text Analyzer Search | Text Analyzer home | Searches_Regular, Searches_Platform |
| Federated search request (metasearch) | JSTOR XML Gateway | Searches_Federated |
COUNTER R5 Data_Types and Section_Types
The chart below may be useful when creating a custom report or reviewing a report. For instance, if you'd like a report to measure usage of books, you would select R5 Data_Type “Book” and R5 Section_Type “Chapter” when building your report.
| JSTOR Content Type | R5 Data_Type | R5 Section_Type |
|---|---|---|
| Article | Journal | Article |
| Chapter | Book | Chapter |
| Image, Panorama, Audio, Video | Multimedia | N/A |
| Pamphlet | Journal | Article |
| Research Report | Report | Other (for multi-part reports) |
| All JSTOR content types | Database | N/A |
| All JSTOR content types | Platform | N/A |
SUSHI reporting
SUSHI harvesting is available for JSTOR. Make sure that you have an administrative account to be able to implement the harvesting. To learn more, please visit our SUSHI-specific support page for information on harvesting JSTOR COUNTER reports using the SUSHI protocol.
Custom book reports
JSTOR offers a usage report that reflects acquisitions and book usage that aligns with your acquisition model(s). To learn more about the ebook usage report, please see Books at JSTOR Reports.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I access COUNTER reports for my library?
You need an individual JSTOR account with administrative privileges to access the COUNTER reporting tool on JSTOR. Please see Accessing JSTOR COUNTER reports for your library for details.
Can I still access COUNTER 4 reports?
No, COUNTER R4 reports are no longer available through the JSTOR reporting service. The service has been retired as of February, 2022.
How far back does COUNTER 5 data go?
COUNTER 5 data is provided for January 2019 to present.
What is the difference between a scheduled report and a requested report?
There are two ways to request COUNTER 5 data in our new reporting system:
- "Request" report: Allows you to request data for a custom date range. The report will be delivered to your email address and will be downloadable within JSTOR Admin as soon as it’s available.
- "Scheduled" reports: Scheduling reports allows you to set up automatic reports to be emailed to you for a selected R5 report at the beginning of every month. Scheduled reports are delivered on the 1st or 2nd of each month, and will only contain data for the previous month. When you set up a new scheduled report, the first report you receive will be sent on the 1st or 2nd day of the next month. Scheduled reports don't expire but can be deleted.
Does JSTOR offer consolidated usage reports for consortia?
Yes! In response to concerns over the removal of consortia reports in COUNTER Release 5, JSTOR now offers a consolidated usage report for consortia and group accounts called the CR_C1 Report. This report facilitates viewing of Release 5 metrics for members in a single report. The metrics included in the report reflect full-access usage, searches, and turnaways.
What should I do if there’s a problem with my COUNTER report?
If you suspect a problem with your COUNTER report, please contact JSTOR Support for assistance.
Why is my file in .TSV file format (and not .XLSX)?
Due to file size limits and efficient data delivery, usage report files default to .XSLX file format unless they contain 200k or greater rows of data. When this data capacity is reached, report files automatically convert to a .TSV file format for smoother delivery.