At 11:17 AM 20/10/2004 -0700, Heather Morrison wrote:
>Another clue to increasing impact in terms of usage is the
>increase in downloads or readership that Stevan refers to. This may be
>the beginnings of evidence of impact beyond academe, that is, usage by
>professionals, teachers, students, etc.
Download statistics can be an extremely valuable source of information.
Consequently, here at Queensland University of Technology (QUT), we have
incorporated a feature that enables depositing authors to monitor their own
download statistics (courtesy of some OA-style code sharing by the
University of Queensland's eprint team).
Not only has this increased our eprint deposit rate, but recent feedback
from some of our researchers indicates that they have found the information
to be extremely illuminating.
In disciplines where citation rates tend to be quite low (e.g. humanities)
, it can be very difficult for researchers to know if one of their research
strands is generating more interest than the others - and thus deserves
more attention. Differential download statistics offer some insight.
Just yesterday, an academic called to thank me - he was delighted that his
self-archived papers had been downloaded over 1000 times in the past 12
months. He went on to say that the download statistics had made him
realise that he should be focusing his research efforts in one particular
direction. The download figures for these papers were ten times greater
than for his other two research interests. Previously, he had no way of
knowing how many times his articles were being read. The data from ISI
citation counts for his publications was so sparse that it gave no useful
indications. He is now determined to self-archive all his future
publications and has been encouraging his peers to do likewise.
http://eprints.qut.edu.au/
Regards
Paula Callan -
**************************************************************
Paula Callan BA (UQ), GradDipLib&InfoSys (QUT), GCEd (Higher) (QUT)
E-print Archive Co-ordinator / Liaison Librarian
Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia
CRICOS No. 00213J
Email: p.callan_at_qut.edu.au Ph: (07) 3864 4670 (Mon-Wed) (07) 3864 3795
(Thu-Fri)
http://eprints.qut.edu.au
***************************************************************
"You see, I don't believe that libraries should be drab places where people
sit in silence, and that's been the main reason for our policy of employing
wild animals as librarians." Monty Python's Flying Circus
Received on Thu Oct 21 2004 - 02:15:38 BST