COUNTER Code of Practice

Data repositories and platform providers can report usage metrics following common best practices and using a standard report format.

COUNTER and members of the Make Data Count team collaborated in publishing the COUNTER Code of Practice for Research Data Usage Metrics. The Code of Practice for Research Data provides a framework for comparable data by standardizing the generation and distribution of usage metrics for research data. The Code of Practice is a guide for logging usage, rules for processing underlying reporting data, and how to process logs into shareable reports.

Getting Started

If you are repository trying to make your data count, we recommend you begin by reading the COUNTER Code of Practice for Research Data to understand the standard format for usage reports including:

elements that should be included in each report
the options that must be provided to enable a consumer to access the reports
how to log transactions
rules for logs processing and basics for harvesting reports

For more information, see the MDC Webinar: COUNTER Code of Practice (September 2017).

The next step is to work on the implementation. In the following sections, there is more information about generating usage reports for a repository and sending them to DataCite:

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