Dashboard data sources
What are the Dashboard’s data sources?
To see the data sources for a specific Dashboard, click on About & FAQ on the Dashboard, and consult the list at Data Sources. The only obligatory data source is title metadata in ONIX format; each publisher then chooses the other data sources they wish to include.
The data sources currently available to be visualised in the Dashboard are detailed in the tables below. The standard data sources and variables used are included, other data sources and variables may be supported as an extra add-on service.
Where the Dashboard gets title metadata from:
Data source |
Status |
Access |
|---|---|---|
Crossref metadata |
Current |
Public |
OAPEN metadata |
Current |
Public |
ONIX-FTP feed from publishers |
Current |
Private |
Thoth |
Current |
Public |
Where the Dashboard gets usage and event data from:
Data source |
Status |
Access |
COUNTER-conformant? |
Events |
Page Views |
Book Views |
Book Downloads |
Chapter Downloads |
Time aggregation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Crossref Event Data |
Current |
Public |
n/a |
Y (count of event [id]) |
Monthly |
||||
Google Analytics Universal |
Not current |
Private |
No |
Y [page_views] |
Y (with custom dimensions) |
Monthly |
|||
Google Books |
Current |
Private |
No |
Y [BV_with_Pages_Viewed] |
Y [qty] |
Monthly |
|||
IRUS Fulcrum |
Current |
Private |
Yes |
Y [title_requests] and [total_item_requests] |
Monthly |
||||
IRUS OAPEN |
Current |
Private |
Yes |
Y [title_requests] and [total_item_requests] |
Monthly |
||||
JSTOR |
Current |
Private |
Yes |
Y [total_item_requests] |
Monthly |
||||
UCL Discovery |
Current |
Public |
No |
Y [total_downloads] |
Monthly |
Public access data sources
The public access data sources are those where data is made publicly available by the data source. No additional access permission is required from Dashboard partners for the Dashboard to access the following data sources if partners want them to be included on their dashboard/s.
Crossref Event Data
Crossref Event Data captures online discussion about research outputs, such as ‘a citation in a dataset or patent, a mention in a news article, Wikipedia page or on a blog, or discussion and comment on social media’. The event data is retrieved using the Crossref Events API. Crossref Event data must be queried using a DOI, which the Dashboard obtains from Crossref Metadata.
Crossref metadata
Crossref is a non-for-profit membership organization, and an official Digital Object Identifier (DOI) Registration Agency of the International DOI Foundation. They make metadata available for all DOIs registered with Crossref. The Dashboard uses Crossref Metadata to match ISBNs obtained from a publishers Onix feed to DOIs to query Crossref Event Data.
OAPEN metadata
OAPEN enables libraries and aggregators to use the metadata of all available titles in the OAPEN Library. The metadata is available in different formats and the Dashboard harvests the data in the XML format to obtain an file in ONIX format for the OAPEN platform.
Thoth
Thoth is a free, open metadata service that publishers can choose to utilise as a solution for metadata storage. Thoth can provide metadata upon request in a number of formats. The Dashboard uses the Thoth Export API to download metadata for publishers in an ONIX format.
UCL Discovery
University College London (UCL) is an eBook publisher, and partner in the Dashboard. UCL Discovery is UCL’s open access repository, showcasing and providing access to the full texts of UCL research publications.
Private access data sources - access permission required
The following private access data sources require specific access permissions to be granted from the Dashboard partner for the Dashboard to access data if partners want them to be included on their dashboard/s.
Google Analytics Universal
Google Analytics Universal monitors and records web traffic for specific websites. If a Dashboard partner had configured Google Analytics on their publisher website, the Google Analytics data can be used to find out which countries and territories website visitors are from.
Google Books
The Google Books Partner program hosts eBooks, including some free open access eBooks. eBook publishers can then download usage reports from Google Books. The Dashboard uses data from the Google Play sales transaction report and the Google Books Traffic Report.
JSTOR
JSTOR is a digital library, offering over 7000 open access eBooks. Publisher usage reports offer details about the use (views and downloads) of eBooks by institution, and country.
ONIX-FTP feed from publishers
ONIX is a standard that book publishers use to share information about the books that they have published. BAD project dashboard partners that have ONIX feeds are given credentials and access to their own upload folder on the Mellon SFTP server. The BAD project dashboard partner uploads their ONIX feed to their upload folder on a weekly, fortnightly or monthly basis. The Book Usage Data Workflows ONIX telescope downloads, transforms (with the ONIX parser Java command line tool) and then loads the ONIX data into BigQuery for further processing.
Private access data sources - no additional access permission required
The following private access data sources are already available to the Dashboard through existing arrangements. They do not require additional access permissions to be granted from the Dashboard partners for the Dashboard to access data if partners want them to be included on their dashboard/s.
IRUS Fulcrum
IRUS provides COUNTER standard access reports for eBooks hosted on the Fulcrum platform. Fulcrum is a “community-developed, open source platform for digital scholarship” which provides “users the ability to read books with associated digital enhancements, such as: 3-D models, embedded audio, video, and databases; zoomable online images, and interactive media”.
IRUS OAPEN
IRUS provides COUNTER standard access reports for eBooks hosted on the OAPEN library and platform. OAPEN “promotes and supports the transition to open access for academic books by providing open infrastructure services to stakeholders in scholarly communication”. Almost all eBooks on OAPEN are provided as a PDF file for the whole book. The reports show access figures for each month, and the location (IP address) of the access. Within the OAPEN Google Cloud project (located in Europe), IP addresses are replaced with geographical information (city and country). This means that IP addresses are not stored within the Dashboard data, and only de-identified geographical information transferred to the Dashboard.