Database Committee: Monthly Requests, Investigations and Searches

There are several different types of usage metric in Counter 5, which break down into investigations and requests. An investigation is tracked when a user performs any action in relation to a content item or title, while a request is specifically related to viewing or downloading the full content item.

Investigations -

• Total_Item_Investigations - the total number of times a content item or information related to a content item was accessed.
• Unique_Item_Investigations - the number of unique content items (e.g. chapters) investigated by a user.
• Unique_Title_Investigations - the number of unique titles (e.g. books) investigated by a user.

Requests -

• Total_Item_Requests - the total number of times the full text of a content item was downloaded or viewed.
• Unique_Item_Requests - the number of unique content items (e.g. chapters) requested by a user.
• Unique_Title_Requests - the number of unique titles (e.g. books) requested by a user.
   

There are four different types of searches in Counter 5:

• Regular Searches - the number of times a user searches a database, when they have actively chosen that database from a list of options OR there is only one database available to search.
• Automated Searches - the number of times a user searches a database, when they have not actively chosen that database from a list of options. That is, Searches_Automated is recorded when the platform offers a search across multiple databases by default, and the user has not elected to limit their search to a subset of those databases. Included are searches conducted on a host site or discovery service where multiple databases are searched simultaneously with a single query and the end user does not have the option of selecting the databases being searched.
• Federated Searches - the number of times a search is run remotely by a computer.
• Platform Searches - the number of times a user searches a database, regardless of the number of databases involved in the search.

Search Notes:

• Automated and Platform Searches - Search activity generated by discovery services and other systems where multiple databases are searched simultaneously and the user does not have the option of selecting the databases being searched MUST be counted as Searches_Automated on Database Reports. Such searches MUST be included on the Platform Reports as Searches_Platform, but only as a single search regardless of the number of databases searched.

Example: A user searches a content site where the librarian has pre-selected 20 databases for business and economics searches and the user does not have the option to change the selection. For each search conducted by the user:

In the Database Report, each of the 20 databases gets credit for 1 Searches_Automated.

In the Platform Report, Searches_Platform gets credited by 1.

• Federated Searches - Search activity generated by federated search engines MUST be categorized separately from searches conducted by users on the host platform.

Any searches generated from a federated search system MUST be included in the separate Searches_Federated counts within Database Reports and MUST NOT be included in the Searches_Regular or Searches_Automated counts.

Stats are from 09/01/2019 - 08/31/2024

The monthly Investigations and Requests data is from the Counter 5 Platform Report. All Search types except for Platform Searches are found in the Database Reports. The Platform Search totals are found in the Platform Report.

Note - below issue for August 2022

From an email received from Ebsco - Beginning August 8th and extending until its complete resolution on August 19th, an issue impacted the recording of usage activity in our products, including EBSCOhost and EBSCO Discovery Service. Any report that you generate or receive covering that period will show a decrease in reported totals across all fields (i.e., sessions, searches, etc.) during that date window. This impacts both our COUNTER reports as well as our Standard Usage reports for all profiles utilizing our classic experiences.

We can confirm that this issue has been resolved, and we have taken steps to ensure that it will not happen again. Regretfully, we are unable to recover the activity during that period.