Earlier this year, the United Kingdom Serials Group (UKSG -
www.uksg.org/ ), in association with the online usage metrics
organisation COUNTER, announced its intention to fund a study which
would explore how online journal usage statistics might form the basis
of a new metric of journal quality.

Accordingly in September 2006 Key Perspectives Ltd was commissioned to
mount a web-based survey of opinion, while consultant and COUNTER
Director Peter Shepherd was commissioned to carry out a series of
in-depth interviews with stakeholders from the author, publisher, and
librarian communities. The aim of these twin avenues of research was to
examine the ways in which journal quality is currently assessed, the
degree to which any additional usage-based metrics might prove valuable
to each stakeholder community, along with practical ways in which such
metrics might be derived and constructed to provide the maximum utility
for all, within defined resource constraints.

The final report is now freely available on the UKSG's website:
http://www.uksg.org/usagefactors/final, with feedback being invited on
the UKSG "liveserials" blog at
http://liveserials.blogspot.com/2007/06/final-report-on-usage-factors-re
search.html

Bev Acreman
pp UKSG

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