PRESS RELEASE - Nature Research



PRESS RELEASE

December 2003

Embargo: for immediate release

Nature Publishing Group becomes COUNTER compliant

Nature Publishing Group is pleased to announce that their usage statistics reports for NPG journals are now compliant with the guidelines established by Project COUNTER (Counting Online Usage of NeTworked Electronic Resources), which governs the recording and exchange of online usage data. The COUNTER Code of Practice is supported by librarians, publishers and intermediaries worldwide, as well as by their professional organisations. These guidelines promote the credible, consistent and compatible measurement of the usage date from online information resources.

COUNTER released, in January 2003, a Code of Practice that specifies the content, format and delivery mechanisms to which vendor-generated online usage reports must conform in order to achieve 'COUNTER compliant' status. The full text of the Code of Practice is available on the COUNTER website ().

NPG will now produce usage statistics reports created by Optimal IQ, which are updated monthly, within 2 weeks of the period measured. An e-mail alert will be sent to all registered site licence administrators alerting them to the availability of their latest data. In accordance with COUNTER specifications, all reports are now available in Excel and CSV formats. The customers will be able to compare the relative usage of different delivery channels; aggregate data for a customer that is using multiple delivery channels and learn more about genuine usage patterns.

Timo Hannay, Associate Director of New Technologies of NPG said:

"Nature Publishing Group has been closely involved with Project COUNTER since its inception and we applaud its goal of providing consistent, reliable web usage statistics to institutional subscribers. We also look forward to supporting this important initiative in the future as it further enhances and extends web statistics interoperability through the standards and tools that it is continuing to develop."

Annette Thomas, Managing Director of NPG said:

"NPG is delighted that we can now provide usage reports that are COUNTER compliant. We see this as an important development for the library community, and for publishers. The COUNTER initiative will allow for more objective comparisons of journal usage statistics by subscribers, and that can only be to the benefit of high quality, high impact journals."

About Nature Publishing Group (NPG) is the scientific publishing arm of Macmillan Publishers Ltd, combining the excellence of: Nature, the Nature research journals, Nature Reviews, international scientific and society journals and NPG Reference publications, to provide the world's premier information resource for the basic biological and physical sciences. NPG is a global company, with headquarters in London and offices in New York, Boston, San Francisco, Washington DC, Tokyo, Delhi, Paris, Munich and Basingstoke. More than half of the company's business activity is in North America; it is also a market leader in Europe and Japan.

About Optimal iQ - Optimal iQ is a leading provider of web analytics solutions and a member of the COUNTER organization.  The company uses innovative technologies and applies a marketing approach to solve web tracking issues for Fortune 500 clients.  These solutions include website tracking, database integration and interactive media campaign analysis.  Optimal iQ is based in Texas with offices in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles.  For more information call (866) 545-6693 or online at .

 

Tom Cuthbert, Optimal iQ Chief Operating Officer said:

"The Nature Publishing project was a challenge because of the complexity of the site and accuracy requirements of the COUNTER reports.  Our team worked closely with the Nature team to develop a solution that meets all of the COUNTER requirements and delivers important information to the Nature management team." 

About COUNTER is a multi-agency, not-for-profit organisation whose objective is to develop and maintain a single, internationally accepted, extendible Code of Practice that allows the usage of online information products and services to be measured more consistently.

The definitive Register of COUNTER-compliant vendors is available on the COUNTER website (). Only vendors and usage reports included on this list should be regarded as being COUNTER compliant.

Peter Shepherd, COUNTER Project Director said:

"The Nature Publishing Group have been enthusiastic supporters of COUNTER since its launch and are committed to providing online usage statistics that are credible, consistent and compatible. We are very pleased indeed to add the publisher of Nature and other high impact journals to the Register of COUNTER-compliant vendors."

CONTACT DETAILS

Laura Brown Craig Canham

Nature Publishing Group Nature Publishing Group

345 Park Avenue South, 6th Floor The Macmillan Building

New York 4 Crinan Street

NY 10010, USA London, N1 9XW, UK;

Tel: 212-726-9368 Tel: +44 (0) 20 7843 4609

E-mail: l.brown@ E-mail: c.canham@

-----------------------

[pic]

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download