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Frequently Asked Questions

What's new?

  • What is COUNTER?
  • What are the features associated with COUNTER Release 3?
  • What is SUSHI and how does it relate to COUNTER Release 3?
  • How do I access the new Scitation Usage Report Service?
  • Why will the current usage report site be available at the same time as the new site?
  • Is the Scitation Usage Report Service compliant with Release 3 of the COUNTER Code of Practice for Journals and Databases?


  • About Scitation Usage Reports

  • What types of COUNTER reports are available?
  • What type of information does the Scitation Usage Report Service provide?
  • What date ranges are now available?
  • Why is our activity level different between the current service and the new service?
  • What titles are available on the new service?
  • Define these file types: HTML, PDF, CSV, XLS and XML.
  • Where do I find counts for searches within a journal?
  • When will the usage reports be ready for viewing each month?
  • How is usage activity assigned to an account?
  • Registration Information

  • How do I register for the Scitation Usage Statistics Service?
  • How can I find my account number?
  • How can I find my registration passcode?
  • I registered and would like to access the service immediately?
  • Password changes/retrieval

  • How do I change my password?
  • How can I retrieve my password?
  • Group reporting

  • What is group reporting on the SURS?
  • Consortia Information

  • When will COUNTER compliant reports for consortia subscribers become available?
  • What will I need when these reports become available?
  • Why does my consortium need multiple logins?
  • What usage data included in institutional reports under the consortium login?
  • Historical Reports

  • Are the historical reports COUNTER compliant?
  • What data is being provided?

  • What's New?

    What is COUNTER?

    Project COUNTER is an industry initiative that provides guidelines for the measurement, creation, and distribution of online usage reports to institutional subscribers. See http://projectcounter.org for more information.

    AIP, Inc., has made a commitment to provide the COUNTER compliant usage reports to our subscribers.


    What are the features associated with COUNTER Release 3?

    • Further improvements to the reliability of the COUNTER usage reports
    • Mitigates the potential inflationary effects on usage statistics of federated and automated search engines, internet robots, crawlers, etc.
    • Provides tools that will facilitate the consolidation, management and analysis of the COUNTER usage statistics
    • Improved COUNTER usage reports for library consortia
    • Improved reporting for journal archives

    What is SUSHI and how does it relate to COUNTER Release 3?

    • The SUSHI (Standardized Usage Statistics Harvesting Initiative) protocol has been incorporated into the COUNTER Code of Practice
    • SUSHI has been developed by NISO (National Information Standards Organizations) in cooperation with COUNTER
    • SUSHI allows for the automated retrieval of the COUNTER usage reports into local systems, making the harvesting and aggregating of usage reports much less time consuming for the librarian or library consortium administrator
    • Several SUSHI client tools are currently available through various vendors
    • For more information or assistance with taking advantage of this new service, please contact the publisher at help@scitation.org

    How do I access the new Scitation Usage Report Service?

    Institutional subscribers who have a username and password to the current usage reports site may use the same login to access the new Scitation Usage Reports Service. To login, go to our homepage at http://www.scitationreports.org.

    Institutional subscribers without a current usage report membership may go to our registration page to create a username and password. When registering, have your account number and passcode ready.

    You may register for the Scitation Usage Reports Service at http://scitation.aip.org/jhtml/inst/statsreg.jsp.

    Why will the current usage report site be available at the same time as the new site?

    During our transition to the fully COUNTER compliant usage reports service, we will maintain our existing Usage Statistics Service for a short interval. This period will allow users to run historical reports on the current service while still viewing the fully COUNTER compliant usage reports on the newly developed usage report service.

    Is the Scitation Usage Report Service compliant with Release 3 of the COUNTER Code of Practice for Journals and Databases?

    Yes, the Usage Report Service for Scitation is compliant with Release 3 of the COUNTER Code of Practice for Journals and Databases. This version of the Code of Practice is mandatory beginning on September 1, 2009 and is the version with which vendors must comply.

    About Scitation Usage Reports

    What types of COUNTER reports are available?

    The following COUNTER defined reports have been developed and are available:

    Journal Report 1: Number of Successful Full-Text Article Requests by Month and Journal
    Database Report 1: Total Searches and Sessions by Month and Database
    Database Report 3: Total Searches and Sessions by Month and Service
    Journal Report 3: Number of Successful Item Requests and Turnaways
    Journal Report 4: Total Searches Run by Month and Service

    Each report provides a unique view into the Scitation online usage data and is formatted to the guidelines that COUNTER has provided.

    What type of information does the Scitation Usage Report Service provide?

    The reports defined above detail counts of successful requests made from the IP addresses you provided on your institutional subscriber license. The usage data is confined to content related pages including abstracts, table of contents, searches and full-text article downloads.

    Also, many institutions have multiple accounts for the journals on the Scitation USS. To ensure complete coverage of usage statistics for your entire institution you will need to register all accounts for the Scitation Usage Report Service.

    What date ranges are now available?

    COUNTER compliant usage data will be provided to institutions beginning with January 2005.

    Non-compliant historical data will be added to the system beginning for the years 2002 through 2004.

    Dates COUNTER Compliant Reports
    Jan-2005 forward Yes Full COUNTER package
    2002 through 2004 No One standard report

    Why is our activity level different between the current service and the new service?

    In addition to modifying and improving the usage reports, we have enhanced the data processing methods used in calculating the usage activity.

    COUNTER has provided standards for excluding duplicate PDF and HTML downloads. These guidelines provide rules for excluding double-clicks and other such activity.

    Institutions with multiple accounts that have overlapping IP’s will have activity assigned directly to the account where their subscription is located. In some cases, this may alter the usage totals under specific individual accounts but totals institutions as a whole will remain the same.

    What titles are available on the new service?

    Usage data is provided for journals published by:

    American Association of Physicists in Medicine
    American Association of Physics Teachers
    American Institute of Physics
    American Physical Society
    American Society of Civil Engineers
    ASME International
    AVS: Science & Technology of Materials, Interfaces, and Processing
    Earthquake Engineering Research Institute
    International Centre for Diffraction Data
    Laser Institute of America
    The Electrochemical Society
    The Institution of Electrical Engineers
    The Society for Information Display
    The Society of Rheology
    Society of Exploration Geophysicists
    SPIE: The International Society for Optical Engineering

    Other publishers' journals may be added at a later date.

    Define these file types: HTML, PDF, CSV and XLS.

    HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) - The coded format language used for creating hypertext documents on the World Wide Web and controlling how Web pages appear.

    PDF - A file format created by Adobe to provide a standard form for storing and editing printed publishable documents. Because documents in PDF format can easily be seen and printed by users on a variety of computer and platform types, they are very common on the World Wide Web. To view files of this type, download the Adobe Acrobat Reader, which is available free from Adobe's Web site - http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html.

    CSV (Comma Separated Variable) - The simplest form of file for holding scientific, or other, data. Data is listed in columns in a text file, each value being separated by a comma. Each new line represents a new set of data.

    XLS - Excel format spreadsheet.

    XML (Extensible Markup Language): A text format designed for ease of implementation and for interoperability with both SGML and HTML. (from http://www.w3.org/XML/)

    Where do I find counts for searches within a journal?

    Currently, the COUNTER-defined standards do not require publishers to report on this data. Usage reports for searches within a journal is planned to be included as an additional report at a later date.

    When will the usage reports be ready for viewing each month?

    Monthly usage reports will be available within 4 weeks of the beginning of the month as per COUNTER standards. A notice will be sent out each month when the usage reports are on the report portal.

    How is usage activity assigned to an account?

    Usage activity is assigned by IP address to each account that contains that IP address. Activity will be assigned to each account if the IP address falls under multiple accounts.

    Summary reports for groups or consortium with overlapping IP addresses in sub-accounts will have the duplicate usage removed.

    Registration Information

    How do I register for the Scitation Usage Statistics Service?

    You may register for the Scitation Usage Reports Service at http://scitation.aip.org/jhtml/inst/statsreg.jsp.

    When registering for the service, you will need a unique passcode provided by Scitation and your account number. To request your passcode, contact help@scitation.org.

    *Please be advised that it may take up to 48 hours for your registration to be activated and for your first batch of reports to be made available. If you are unable to log in to SURS after two business days, please contact us at help@scitation.org.

    When registering for the service, you will need a unique passcode provided by Scitation and your account number. To request your passcode, contact help@scitation.org.

    How can I find my account number?

    Your institution's account number can be found on your print copy mailing label or the Institutional User License. If you do not know your account number, contact your serials librarian or subscription agent.

    If you have exhausted all resources and cannot determine your account number, please email help@scitation.org with all other account information. The name of your institution must be discernable from the domain portion of the email address from which the information is sent.

    How can I find my registration passcode?

    When registering for the service, you will need a unique passcode provided by Scitation and your account number.

    To request your passcode, contact help@scitation.org

    I registered and would like to access the service immediately?

    If you have successfully registered, there is a 24-hour period during which the service will be updated with your information.

    Reports for newly registered users will be run on the first day of the following month but have not received a confirmation email, your account is still active; visit the Scitation Usage Statistics Service Login page to run a report.

    Password Changes/Retrieval

    How do I change my password?

    Institutional users may change their password by going to http://scitation.aip.org/jhtml/inst/changepass.jsp

    *Note: Password changes will take up 48 hours to take effect.

    How can I retrieve my password?

    To retrieve your password, go to http://scitationreports.org/Docs/Password.aspx and provide your username.

    What is group reporting on the SURS?

    Group reports are the compilation of related institutional accounts into one set of reports. The settings and configurations for these group reports are taken from the old usage report site and are designed to provide continuity in reporting between the new and old report platforms.

    Note: The group reports do not necessarily contain all reports for your institution. You must register each institutional account with the SURS to provide full coverage for your institution.

    Consortia Information

    When will COUNTER compliant reports for consortia subscribers become available?

    COUNTER compliant reports for consortia subscribers will be become available at the initial release of the new service.

    What will I need when these reports become available?

    Consortia subscribers will need to have a username and password to enter the site and collect reports.

    These logins will be delivered to designated consortia administrators prior to release of the new service. To request your login, contact help@scitation.org

    Why does my consortium need multiple logins?

    Usage report accounts for consortium administrators will be separated by agreement with a publisher or publisher group. Agreements made with different sources will require distinct logins for each.

    What usage data included in institutional reports under the consortium login?

    Usage data will be provided for all subscriptions under the institution and consortium accounts.

    All usage associated with IP addresses for each institution will be included in the institutional usage report.

    The consortium summary report will not duplicate usage for overlapping IP addresses.

    Consortia Information

    Are the historical reports COUNTER compliant?

    The usage data displayed in the historical reports was not processed under the COUNTER standards and is not compliant with the COUNTER standards. The usage data has been moved from the old usage reporting service to provide a view into past activity.

    What data is being provided?

    The usage data in the historical reports was copied over from Scitation's previous reporting service to the Scitation Usage Report Service. The available data is limited and shows total, by journal, data for these file types: articles, abstracts, tables of contents, searches and homepages. The format of the report remains the same.

    Activity is displayed for participating titles that are under an active subscription.