FAQ

Using JUSP

How do I access JUSP?

If you are a member of an institution participating in JUSP you can log in and view your institution's usage. From the JUSP website click on Portal in the top right.

At most institutions access is provided through the UK Access Management Federation (UKAMF) and you can log in using your institution's Shibboleth or OpenAthens credentials. If your institution is in both the UKAMF and the OpenAthens Federation then you will see two entries when you search for your institution. In many cases these will be identical and so it doesn't matter which you select. However, if your institution has different metadata for each federation (i.e. treats them as different routes), only one will work. You may need to advise your colleagues which to select.

Some institutions have requested that access be restricted to specific users and in this situation you will be instructed to email a nominated contact to request access the first time you try to access JUSP.

If your institution does not use Shibboleth, OpenAthens or the UKAMF, we can provide you will an alternative login and you can login via the Non-UK Federation route.

If your institution is not yet participating in JUSP you can find more information about how to join here: https://jusp.jisc.ac.uk/join/uk-academic-libraries/

What usage data does JUSP hold?

JUSP contains COUNTER-compliant usage data from participating publishers and suppliers which are presented to libraries in a range of reports and visualisations through a single gateway.

JUSP collects COUNTER Release 5 reports from January 2019 where available as suppliers transition or join. Collection of Title Master Report (TR), Platform Master Report (PR) and Database Master Report (DR) has begun and further supplier data will be added as reports become compliant. Inclusion of Item Master Report (IR) which will incorporate multimedia usage (IR_M1) is a planned future development subject to supplier availability.

JUSP will continue to collect COUNTER Release 4 reports from suppliers until R5 reports can be harvested, or the supply of R4 ceases. The Release 4 reports covered by JUSP include: journal (JR1, JR1a, JR1 GOA, JR2 and JR5), book (BR1, BR2 and BR3), database (DB1 and DB2) and platform (PR1).

JUSP retains all historical usage collected but the specific data held for each institution, publisher and report type will depend on when the publisher joined, when the institution joined, when JUSP started collecting that report type, and the back data available at the time of collection. The earliest year for JR1 journal data is 2009 and for JR2 and JR5 journal, book and database data it is 2014. TR, DR and PR (COUNTER Release 5) all start in 2019.

You can see which reports and suppliers are available for your institution from the portal home page after logging in.

How do I exclude backfile/archive and open access usage?

In the Release 4 reports, where a journal publisher provided the JR1, JR1a and JR1 GOA it is possible to exclude backfile and open access usage by subtracting the JR1a and JR1 GOA from the JR1 as in the report JR1 reports excluding backfile usage and GOA in the Journals (R4) area. However, not all publishers supplied the JR1a or JR1 GOA.

When viewing Release 5 reports, open access usage is excluded by default from the title standard views for journal and book usage (namely TR_B1, TR_J1 and TR_J4). Journal backfile or archive usage can be excluded using publication year information in the TR_J4: Journal Requests by YOP (Excluding OA_Gold).

Can I compare my institution's usage with that of another?

JUSP has two R5 visualisations that allow you to view usage trends in the bigger picture. The visualisation 'Trends for Jisc band or peer group' shows you total monthly usage trends for a group of institutions. The visualisation 'Compare your institution' shows your total usage along with anonymised usage of other institutions in your Jisc band or peer group.

R4 usage profiling reports enable institutions to see how their overall usage compares with the average for other groups of institutions (such as Jisc Band). The journal (R4) data visualisations 'Compare your site with others in your Jisc Band' and 'Compare your site with others in your peer groups' display anonymised usage in a bar chart with your institution highlighted.

If your institution is a member of a consortium with a data sharing agreement (such as SHEDL or WHEEL) additional reports are available to your institution.

It is not possible to compare your usage with a specific institution.

How do I export and download usage data?

All R4 reports are exportable in CSV format which you can then open in Excel or other spreadsheet tools. All R5 reports are exportable as CSV and TSV. The data visualisations can be captured as an image for use in presentations and reports, but it is not possible to export the interactive visualisation.

It is also possible to harvest the COUNTER standard reports into other library systems via SUSHI (a machine-to-machine interaction). For more information see: How JUSP works with other systems and services.

How do I view usage data about conference proceedings?

There are no standard views for conference proceedings, but they are included in the COUNTER Title Report (TR). Use the TR: Filter Title Master Report to view the usage statistics about conference proceedings.

You can find out more about how to use the TR: Filter Title Master Report with our guide to Creating tailored views using the TR: Filter Title Master Report – a step-by-step guide [PDF] and video guide How can JUSP filters tailor reports to my requirements?

Note that in COUNTER Release 5, conference proceedings do not have a specific Data_Type and most publishers, including IEEE, use Data_Type=Other. Data_Types for Conference and Conference_Item will be introduced in COUNTER 5.1 which is due for release in February 2025.

Benefits of using JUSP

We already use a library/e-resource management system to collect usage statistics. What value is there in using JUSP too?

There are two key benefits:

  • Jisc handles all data collection, quality assuring data to ensure it is standards compliant and re-harvesting data where a publisher has made a restatement. Therefore, using JUSP's SUSHI server to collect data into your own systems means that you can benefit from this QA process and interact with one SUSHI service to efficiently request multiple publishers. The case study Using JUSP's SUSHI server in conjunction with statistical packages and tools looks at the benefits of using JUSP in this way
  • For Jisc member institutions, Jisc Collections use the aggregated usage data to negotiate with publishers to ensure they obtain the best deals for the community. Collecting data on your behalf provides a more complete picture of national usage and a better dataset for Jisc Collections. A case study Using JUSP to support national negotiations for a better deal illustrates this.

I use OpenAthens for usage statistics. How is JUSP different?

OpenAthens provides a different type of usage data than JUSP. OpenAthens generates statistics based on access to resource platforms. It covers a wide range of resources and provides breakdown by user groups, and so it is useful for understanding user behaviour, analysing usage by user group, and viewing the big picture.

JUSP collects and aggregates standardised COUNTER usage data provided by suppliers. The COUNTER data is more focused on the content detail i.e. usage and access denials for specific books, journal titles, and databases. This is particularly useful for collection analysis, renewals, and purchasing decisions. JUSP builds summary reports and visualisations based on the COUNTER data provided by publishers and suppliers.

Is it possible to receive reminder emails when new monthly reports are available?

You can now get a small number of pre-set report (the 'All Titles', 'Top titles' and 'Summary' reports) delivered to your inbox each month. For further details and to set this up, click on the email link on the landing page after you log in and follow the instructions.

How do I give feedback and make requests?

JUSP is a community-driven service and features and functionality are developed in response to feedback and user requirements.

We have a community advisory group consisting of representative librarians that provides independent, external advice to support JUSP development.

We also report to the Jisc Collections Content Strategy Group that has oversight of JUSP's strategy and direction.

We run a user survey every 1-2 years to evaluate the service and request feedback.

You can also send use feedback, enhancement requests, or questions at any time by contacting the helpdesk help@jisc.ac.uk and including JUSP in the subject.

COUNTER reports

What's the difference between COUNTER Release 4 and Release 5? Which should I use?

The COUNTER Code of Practice is a standard to enable publishers and vendors to produce consistent and credible usage data. Release 4 and Release 5 refer to different versions of the standard. Release 5 is the current version and was introduced in January 2019, but some suppliers have yet to transition to the new standard.

In JUSP, we will continue to collect Release 4 reports until compliant R5 reports can be harvested or the platform ceases to supply R4 reports. As suppliers transition, Release 5 data will be collected from January 2019 onwards (subject to availability from suppliers). The reports you will need to use will depend on which date range you are interested in.

Can I compare usage across COUNTER R4 and COUNTER R5?

Although the R4 reports and R5 views look different, they are intended to meet the same reporting needs and use cases, and as the R5 reports offer more granularity and flexibility this enables libraries to compare R4 and R5 usage. Section 9 of the friendly guide to COUNTER release 5 for librarians shows where the information in R4 reports can be found in the Release 5 standard views. Section 13.3 of the Code of Practice has a table comparing R4 reports and metrics with the closest R5 equivalents. However, there have been a few changes to the processing that mean that figures may differ slightly when comparing overlapping data directly.

In R5 the rules and terminology are more clearly defined so there is less ambiguity for suppliers and librarians.

Why do some e-book suppliers show large drops in usage between R4 and R5?

Due to clarifications in the way book sections are counted in different situations, some suppliers appear to have very large drops in usage counts when comparing R4 BR2 section requests and R5 Total_Item_Requests.

SpringerLink is one example of this, and they have a support guide that explains why this is and how to obtain a custom metric directly from their librarian portal. See How to compare book requests in C4 with requests in C5. Note that this custom metric is unique to SpringerLink and not included in the JUSP reports.

How is temporary free access to content handled in the COUNTER reports?

Publishers and suppliers sometimes make subscription content freely available to certain groups on a temporary basis in response to an event or as part of promotion activity.

When looking at your COUNTER usage reports there are a couple of things to consider:

  • Free content is not "OA_Gold". Usage will be recorded as "Controlled" in the COUNTER R5 reports
  • Usage and denials are only included in COUNTER reports when the events can be attributed to an institution. The user either needs to be logged in with an institutional account or be within the institutional IP range.

During 2020 this happened on a huge scale in response to the pandemic; to support research and the sudden shift to online learning. The effect on your usage trends will depend on what the supplier offered and if your institution implemented it. For more information about the different scenarios, see our guide on understanding the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on e-resource usage trends.

How do we identify zero usage titles?

If you want to find out which subscriptions or titles in your collection are not being used, it is not possible to do this with COUNTER usage reports alone. You will need to compare the usage reports to a list of titles in your collection. The license subscriptions manager site has a catalogue where you can search for titles - https://subscriptionsmanager.jisc.ac.uk/. Alternatively, you can obtain a list from the publisher if you do not have one locally.

In the Release 4 JR1, JR1a and JR1 GOA reports many publishers included entries for all titles on their platform so you will see titles with zero usage in the reporting period. However, when viewing these reports nil-usage should be treated with caution as inclusion in the report does not necessarily mean you have access.

In the other Release 4 reports (JR2, JR5, BR1, BR2, BR3, DB1, DB2, and PR1) and all Release 5 reports and views, only titles and databases with usage or access denials are included in the reports.

If you use KB+ core titles these will be marked up in the Release 4 journal reports and in the Release 5 custom views for journals (TR_J1, TR_J2, TR_J3 and TR_J4).

What does section request mean in COUNTER Release 4 Book Report 2 (BR2)?

The Books Report 2 (BR2) shows the number of successful section requests by month and title. The COUNTER definition is "the first level of subdivision of a book or reference work." For example, this may be a chapter or an encyclopaedia entry. The meaning of section request varies between publishers, for example some report on pages whereas others report on chapters, which means usage is not comparable.

This issue was addressed in Release 5 of code of practice with the introduction of the Unique_Title_Requests metric in TR_B1 which will tell you the usage for each book.

How is JUSP managing the transition to COUNTER Release 5?

For information on JUSP's work on COUNTER Release 5 please see our news page: https://jusp.jisc.ac.uk/news/counter5.html

How JUSP processes data

How often is data held in JUSP updated?

COUNTER reports are produced monthly and for complete months, which means reports for a given month are released in the following month. JUSP gathers the usage data when it becomes available and so this may be at any point during the month.

Sometimes the data is restated at a later date (e.g. corrections are made) and when JUSP is made aware of these instances we will re-harvest and replace the data.

Can JUSP collect usage reports more frequently, e.g. weekly instead of monthly?

No, COUNTER reports are released monthly. Although some vendors provide additional reports directly from their administrator site, the SUSHI versions of the COUNTER reports are only available for complete months. We make data available when the publisher releases them, so this could be at any point during the following month.

Do you make any changes to the data?

No. We take the data as provided in the suppliers' SUSHI feeds and do not change or manipulate them unless the file fails one of our checking procedures and there's an obvious fix, for example a missing ISSN. The usage figures are never changed. If you are concerned about figures in any report, please contact the helpdesk expressing your concern, and we will investigate. However, note that a supplier would need to restate data before we can re-harvest the data; we would not change any figures directly.

What checks are carried out before loading the data?

We can't check every file for every publisher and institution by eye as this would leave no time to do anything else! But over 99.9% of the data are collected with no problems and it is only in a very tiny minority of cases that errors occur, such as a publisher or institution changing credentials, a server being unavailable, or a failure of one of the sanity checks mentioned below.

Data go through several stages before they are accepted into the database.

  1. We carry out a visual check of the size and format of the publisher files to ensure it's a correct file. Files are almost always of a certain file size, so any that differ wildly from what we would expect to see are likely to be false downloads and in those cases we gather them again. We would also manually check such files to see if there are any obvious formatting errors or if the file has timed out during collection or is reporting an error such as a failed authorisation
  2. We then run a program over the files, which performs around a dozen sanity checks to ensure that the files are formatted correctly, that identifiers are present, that titles are not incomplete or missing, and that the file format and structure are correct
  3. We generate a load file for each corresponding file that has been collected. Once loaded, we randomly pick a selection of institutions and check that the figures look correct – we cannot do this for every file of course, and we rely on institutions to spot any errors within the data or if anything appears to be missing

How does JUSP handle data from suppliers hosting content from multiple publishers? (EBSCOhost, ProQuest, OUP, CUP, JSTOR, etc.)

The R4 journals, R4 books & databases, and R5 reports are handled differently.

In the R4 journals area, usage is viewed on a per publisher basis and so full reports are not available for EBSCO, ProQuest and IngentaConnect, but instead usage from these platforms can be viewed alongside direct publisher usage. Note that here JSTOR and Project Muse are treated as publishers.

In the R4 Books & Other area, reports are selected on a per supplier basis and you can view usage for all content on the EBSCOhost, ProQuest, OUP, CUP and JSTOR platforms.

In the R5 area, reports are selected per service and, as they become compliant with R5, the reports and views will cover all content supplied in the master reports. However, there may be exceptions and we will need to consider these on a case-by-case basis depending on our existing participation agreements.

How JUSP works with other systems and services

Does JUSP work with other usage statistics products?

Yes. You can use JUSP's SUSHI servers to harvest reports from JUSP into other third-party systems. For R4 this includes UStat, Alma Analytics, 360 Counter, Millennium, EBSCONET Usage Consolidation, LibInsight, LibMetrix, RedLink, Selection Support and SirsiDynix BLUEcloud eRM (CORAL). For R5, this currently includes Alma, 360 Counter, EBSCO Usage Consolidation, Intota, LibMetrix and OCLC WorldShare License Manager.

Further information about using the JUSP SUSHI server to gather usage data from JUSP and import it into other usage statistics products can be found on the SUSHI server administration / authorisation pages accessible from your JUSP portal welcome page.

Publisher and supplier participation

We would like JUSP to gather usage data from other publishers or suppliers. What do we need to do?

First, check for which publishers and suppliers we collect data on behalf of your institution, by logging in to JUSP and taking a look at the 'Admin' area and the 'Data available at my institution' page. Then check which publishers and suppliers we are working with in the 'Supplier status' page.

You can now look up what details or action JUSP needs to add new data for a supplier/platform. This is available in the new 'Adding new data' page. The 'Individual supplier details' page will also show these instructions for suppliers where we aren't currently collecting R5 data for you.

If we are already working with the supplier, then we can start gathering data on your behalf and collect backdata wherever possible. If they are not yet participating, we can add your expression of interest to our supplier wish list.

What happens when a journal transfers to a different publisher?

If we are already collecting usage from the new publisher for your institution, then this title will start appearing in their usage reports, with the exception of publishers on HighWire where the titles will need to be associated with your HighWire account.

If we aren't already collecting data from the new publisher for your institution, you will need to inform us through the helpdesk.

If the title transfers to a publisher or supplier that is not yet participating in JUSP, we will not be able to collect data from the new publisher until they join but will continue to hold the historical data.

Do we need to supply SUSHI credentials to JUSP for each supplier?

No. Wherever possible we liaise with the supplier directly to set up data collection. In some cases, we do require a few details from you and we will inform you when this is the case. However, we do need to be informed if you would like us to start gathering data from the JUSP participating supplier.

If a new supplier joins JUSP or transitions to a new platform, we will liaise with them to obtain details for all institutions. In some cases, this may not be possible, and we will notify libraries of this through the mailing list or main contacts as appropriate so that we can gather credentials.

What is required for publisher usage data to appear in JUSP?

For data to appear in JUSP, a publisher or supplier must meet the following criteria:

  • They have been requested by JUSP participating libraries
  • They supply COUNTER-compliant usage statistics reports via the Standardized Usage Statistics Harvesting Initiative (SUSHI) protocol (https://www.niso.org/standards-committees/sushi)
  • They have returned a signed Publisher Participation Agreement

Participating libraries add requests to the supplier wish list by contacting to the helpdesk. After receiving a request, Jisc Collections contacts the supplier to provide background information about JUSP, invite them to participate, and respond to any questions or concerns they may have. Once the publisher has signed up to JUSP, we can also work with them to test their SUSHI service and COUNTER reports.

Libraries can also encourage publishers and suppliers to join by making them aware of the library's interest in having them participate.