What's happening in the information industry: KBART, Transfer, COUNTER, MESUR
At Ingenta we pride ourselves on remaining at the pinnacle of technological development and being at the forefront of information industry initiatives. With this in mind we like to keep a close eye on wide-ranging industry projects that will have significant impacts on the way we process, handle and distribute the data we host. These are large scale projects in which we have deeply rooted interests and, in some cases, a hand in shaping. As such, we like to keep you up to date on the developments which will ultimately affect you and your subscribers.
- KBART: the UKSG and NISO form a working group to improve supply of data to knowledge bases
In early 2006, information industry association UK Serials Group (UKSG) commissioned a research report (Link Resolvers and the Serials Supply Chain) ‘to identify the new relationships and information exchange requirements … [necessary] to maximise the benefit of OpenURL linking’. Central to the efficient operation of the OpenURL is the knowledge base, which consists of data supplied by content providers including publishers.
The report found that a lack of awareness on the part of many publishers of the OpenURL’s capabilities and requirements is impacting the quality and timeliness of data they provide to populate knowledge bases, and thus undermining the potential of this sophisticated technology.
In response to the report, the UKSG has worked with the US' National Information Standards Organisation (NISO) to set up KBART (Knowledge Bases And Related Tools), a working group that intends to develop guidelines and educational resources to improve the supply of data to providers of knowledge bases and related tools. These guidelines, and their associated program of education and advocacy will be focused on content providers (particularly smaller publishers) to improve the efficacy with which OpenURL is currently implemented, and thus to improving its impact on the library community. The group includes representatives from across the information community, including librarians, consortia members, link resolver and ERM vendors, publishers, aggregators, subscription agents, online content hosts, and representatives from other related organisations such as ALPSP and CrossRef.
The working group will be chaired by our own Group Marketing Manager, Charlie Rapple, on behalf of UKSG, and we will publish information about its progress in forthcoming issues of this newsletter. In the meantime, please do not hesitate to contact Charlie with any questions that you may have about the group's activities.
- Transfer - Regulating the code of conduct
Since its inception in April 2006, the Transfer Working Group has been identifying and mapping the various data and general information components that come into play when a title changes publisher . The aim is to create a central repository containing mandatory and optional fields that should be completed by publishers when titles move between them.
Following a release of the first draft of The Transfer Code of Conduct there have been a number of concerns from some publishers about the feasibility of the intended Transfer code. ALPSP/STM commented that the code does not recognise the complexity of business models and approaches used by different publishers and also requested that all 'mandatory' requirements should be removed. The prescribed transfer of the subscription lists is mentioned without reference to data protection or compensation. It was also commented that the requirement for Transfering Publishers to continue to give one months access after transfer is unnecessary if other factors within the code are complied with. As such, the Transfer group are currently working on a new draft incorporating this feedback
- COUNTER - Compliance boosts library Statistics
We're delighted to confirm that Ingenta’s library statistics are now officially compliant with Release 2 of the COUNTER code of practice. COUNTER's Journal Report 1 can be requested by library administrators via IngentaConnect as previously for COUNTER Release 1. COUNTER makes it easier for libraries to retrieve and compare usage statistics for different web services. You can find more information on COUNTER and the audit process for compliance here.
- MESUR - re-evaluating journal ranking
IngentaConnect is now participating in the 2-year MESUR project (MEtrics from Scholarly Usage of Resources), which is researching alternative methods of ranking journals. The project team required that we supply article-level usage data for the content we host. In return, MESUR adheres to strict privacy guidelines that prohibit publishing or sharing of the data without express permission. The data is also anonymised in order to mask specific institutional usage, or names of data providers or publishers. By participating in the project, Ingenta and its participating publishers will get an early insight into the findings of the project. We are very grateful to our publishers for contributing to this investigation.