**WITH APOLOGIES FOR CROSS-POSTING**

Sent on behalf of the United Kingdom Serials Group

UKSG to fund investigation into new usage-based measure of journal
quality

The United Kingdom Serials Group (UKSG), in association with the online
usage metrics organisation COUNTER, today announced its intention to
fund a study which will explore how online journal usage statistics
might form the basis of a new metric of journal quality.

The widespread and growing adherence by journal publishers to the
COUNTER Code of Practice has increased the credibility of usage
statistics as a reliable measure of the comparative use of journals.
What usage statistics do not currently do is provide a comparative
measure of journal quality or value. All other things being equal, a
journal publishing 2000 articles a year will generate significantly more
downloads than one publishing 50. Elaborating on the dilemma this causes
, Terry Bucknell, Electronic Resources  Manager  at Liverpool University
pointed out,  "If I was guided solely by usage statistics, I would
cancel all my subscriptions to humanities journals, which tend to
publish far fewer issues per year than the monster science titles".

The initiative launched today by the UKSG sets out to see if it will be
practical to address this situation in a way similar to the way ISI's
Impact Factor seeks to compensate for the fact that larger journals will
tend to be cited more than smaller ones.

Will this initiative succeed? The UKSG's Chair, Keith Courtney, is
optimistic. "The basic building blocks - COUNTER-compliant usage reports
- are already in place", he explained. "What the research which we are
sponsoring will do will be to investigate practical issues - what work
would have to be conducted, what information sources tapped, and what
infrastructure set up, so that some kind of usage based ratio - a 'Usage
Factor' if you like - can be developed and then regularly calculated and
disseminated".

For further information about this initiative contact in the first
instance Alison Whitehorn, UKSG Business Manager - alison@uksg.org or
tel 01635 254292.

It is the intention of UKSG to put this study out to competitive tender
and full details, including the ITT itself, can be found on the UKSG web
site at www.uksg.org/rfp.pdf <http://www.uksg.org/rfp.pdf>

About the UK Serials Group

The UK Serials Group (UKSG) [www.uksg.org] exists to encourage the
exchange of ideas on printed and electronic serials and the process of
scholarly communication. With a membership of nearly 600 organisations,
a third of them based outside the UK, its membership embraces the
complete spectrum of activity from serials producers to readers via
agents, online hosts, libraries and their system providers.

About COUNTER

COUNTER (Counting Online Usage of NeTworked Electronic Resources)
[www.projectCounter.org <http://www.projectcounter.org/> ] is a
multi-agency initiative which develops and maintains a set of
internationally accepted Codes of Practice that allow the usage of
online information products and services to be measured in a credible,
consistent and compatible way.  Release 1 of the COUNTER Code of
Practice for journals and databases was published in January 2003 and
has been widely implemented. Release 2 was published in April 2005 and
replaced Release 1 from January 2006. COUNTER is actively supported by
the international community of librarians and publishers, and by their
professional organisations.
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