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Explore the evolution of usage reporting at Elsevier, with insights into data collection, analysis for informed decisions, and internal studies on user behavior.
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What does Elsevier count? Use Measures for Electronic Resources: Theory & Practice ALCTS Program, ALA, Chicago Daviess Menefee Director, Library Relations, Americas Date: June 27, 2005
My Agenda for today • Part 1: Some history on usage reporting with ScienceDirect • Part 2: Present some of the business aspects of usage from a publisher’s point of view • Part 3: Look at a couple of interesting results on usage and its reporting from our internal studies
Not too long ago…. • ScienceDirect usage reports were: • Word Documents • Derived by processing logfiles on a PC, over a single weekend • Provided only the barest of data • Began with 6 insisting customers • Delivered via email by the assigned Account Manager • Never detailed what was not used.
Did we know what we were doing? • We thought so. • Some internal concern over the potential impact of usage reports on subscriptions • No standard or benchmarks to follow • Navigating in the dark • Had high hopes to advance the “science” of usage reporting and analysis. But we didn’t know what that was. • Usage reporting grew organically from the demands of the market as well as the business.
And then we made some mistakes. • Usage reporting and transactional downloads were not fully reconcilable. Two different systems in play. • Not including 0 usage in the reports caused a degree of unreliability in the reports. • Trying to define sessions in a session-less state was not very productive.
But then we did some good things. • Published a white paper indicating that we were reducing the number of downloads based on user behavior. (Our sales staff were not pleased.) • Invested heavily in designing and implementing a state of the art system that could provide reports directly to the customer. • Supported the establishment of Counter.
Did we learn anything? • Yes, about customer reporting. We have improved as an industry in defining and delivering them. We have come a long way. • We have created a trusted third party group to monitor and audit the reports. • We continue to study user behavior and try to understand it better.
Part 2: Why does Elsevier count usage? Data for business information such as • Trends • Product Performance • Return On Investment Need Data for Informed decisions • Determine Future Directions, ex: Pricing
Elsevier Management Reports • Produced Monthly • Summarize Key Performance Indicators • Indicators: Major Areas • Content • System • Customers • Other (Links, trials, Web Editions, etc.)
Performance Indicators for SD • Content Indicators • Number of Journals • Number of Abstracts • Number of full-text articles available • System Performance • Number of Page Requests • Total Full-text articles downloaded, PDF/HTML • Total Articles incl. SD On Site • Total Searches
Performance Indicators, 2 • Customers • Number of Contracts • Number of Registered Accounts • Number of Active Accounts • Estimated number of user sessions • Number of Active Users (cookie based)
More on Performance Indicators • “Other areas” measured: • Trial Customers • Guest Usage • Esp. Article downloads (PPV) • Web Editions (limited to customer base statistics) • Promotional Usage • Scirus (no. of searches and indexed pages) • Linking Indicators
What is the point? • Company has set target numbers for most areas of the KPI’s. • Change our thinking from traditional publishing to how to grow an electronic journals--books business. • Enables the setting of objectives and priorities. • Publishing units now have usage goals.
Product Management Reports • Opportunity for product managers to review and comment on trends or explain why a number is out of proportion. • Examples: • Usage of abstracts decreased during the month but the number of guests users increased. • MathML increased this month over last month and points to a trend of continuing growth.
What’s worth counting? • Just about everything that involves end users and content. • Full-text Articles are the norm but Elsevier also continues to monitor browsing behavior especially from guest users (a possible new market). • Important to look at changes and how that effects any usage (training, system changes, etc.)
Part 3: Some Internal Studies 1. Referring URL Study • Who is sending us the traffic? • What are the subject areas where users come into the product? 2. Usage on Usage Study • Are these reports really being used? • Who is using them? • What triggers use?
Traffic Referrals to SD • Major Sites (95%): • Customers’ OPACs • PubMed • Elsevier Site – Cell Press • Cross Ref • ChemPort • Search Engines (Scirus)
Some Analysis on Subject Entry • Life Science end users prefer to come into ScienceDirect from 3rd party sources, namely the A&I databases • Humanities and Social Scientists prefer the Journal Home Page on ScienceDirect • For some areas there appears no difference: Energy, Chemical Engineering, Mat Sciences and Engineering.
2. Usage of Usage Reports • Internal Elsevier Study of use of ScienceDirect usage reports • Who uses usage reports? • Asia/Pacific Librarians lead the list • What triggers use of these reports • Email Alerts • Asia/Pacific has the most alerts set up • 63% customers use the reports when they have an alert as opposed to 30% without the alert.
Usage Reports: did we over build? • ScienceDirect data may indicate such. • But the data may be useful some day and probably best to keep it at hand for now. • Are there more functional reports that should be developed, e.g. factor in cost of content for performance measure?
To really end this presentation- • We still do not know enough about user behavior and how that affects the numbers. • We do know that the users are disparate and have different usage patterns in their respective subjects. • Open question: what are meaningful numbers and in what context. Answer may be a local solution. • Publishers don’t have all the answers either.
Thank You! d.menefee@elsevier.com
