COUNTER AND SUSHI

Statistical Report

Nova uses Standardized Usage Statistics Harvesting Initiative (SUSHI) protocol which is dedicated to work with Counting Online Usage of Networked Electronic Resources (COUNTER) to provide access to various kinds of usage reports which includes Journal, Database, Platform and Book reports for improved analysis.

About COUNTER

COUNTER developed a standard named Code of Practice to count the usage of electronic resources such as journals, databases, books, reference works, and multimedia and to ensure the statistics are agreeable. This international standard enables librarians and publishers to procure reliable and accurate statistical information. COUNTER has published various Code of Practice releases to build up a standard for producing online publication usage reports in a precise manner.

“COUNTER serves librarians, vendors, intermediaries and others by facilitating the recording and exchange of online usage statistics. The COUNTER Code of Practice Release 4 provides guidance on data elements to be measured, definitions of these data elements, output report content and format, as well as on data processing and auditing. To have their usage statistics and reports designated COUNTER compliant, vendors must provide usage statistics that conform to the Code of Practice.”

For detailed information, please refer to https://www.projectcounter.org/code-of-practice-sections/general-information/

Releases of COP

COUNTER has published various releases (R1-R5) of Code of Practise (COP) with continuous enhancement in recording and reporting of usage data statistics reports.

Release 1 of the COUNTER Code of Practice was published in 2003, to develop standards for acquiring online publication usage reports.

Release 2 of the COUNTER Code of Practice was published in 2005, for providing counter reports for journals, database and Book. Later, the automatic downloading of reports has become vital for continuous usage of the report by librarians.

Release 3 of the COUNTER Code of Practice was published in 2009, with SUSHI protocol as an integral feature to automate the retrieval and downloading of COUNTER reports.

Release 4 of the COUNTER Code of Practice was published in 2013, by covering journals, databases and books, as well as multimedia content.

Release 5 of the COUNTER Code of Practice was published in 2019, with improved lucidity and flexibility.

About SUSHI

SUSHI protocol has evolved to be used with ANSI/NISO Z39.93-2014 standard mainly with the focus on automating the retrieval of COUNTER reports from different sources swiftly. This standardized protocol greatly benefits the publishers and librarians in terms of reliable usage statistics management and time.

“The Standardized Usage Statistics Harvesting Initiative (SUSHI) Protocol standard defines an automated request and response model for the harvesting of electronic resource usage data utilizing a Web services framework.” – NISO

For detailed information, please refer to https://www.projectcounter.org/code-of-practice-sections/sushi/

SUSHI Schema

The SUSHI protocol with core XML schema (XSD), ReportRequest, ReportResponse and a Web Services Description Language (WSDL) that are needed to be put together to create a SUSHI Web service.

“The SUSHI standard has three supporting XML schemas posted on the NISO website. The core schema (sushi[version].xsd) can be used with any conforming usage statistics reports. The two schemas with “sushi” in their name are basically retrieval envelopes for the XML-formatted COUNTER reports. The COUNTER XML schemas can be used separately from SUSHI by anyone who wants the reports in XML formats.” – NISO

For detailed information, please refer to https://www.niso.org/schemas/sushi