Name:
COUNTER Foundation Class 9: Completing a COUNTER audit
Description:
COUNTER Foundation Class 9: Completing a COUNTER audit
Thumbnail URL:
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Duration:
T00H07M54S
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Content URL:
https://cadmoreoriginalmedia.blob.core.windows.net/f214fe6b-8d3f-4c38-84eb-a9d6516b1216/COUNTER Foundation Class 9_ Completing a COUNTER audit.mp4?sv=2019-02-02&sr=c&sig=1OowDLeHh3GTf87l%2BuGxoYXpysBGngEYT76cDgKc%2F3s%3D&st=2024-11-21T15%3A49%3A31Z&se=2024-11-21T17%3A54%3A31Z&sp=r
Upload Date:
2022-02-04T00:00:00.0000000
Transcript:
Language: EN.
Segment:0 .
Welcome to this ninth COUNTER Foundation Class, this class has been prepared by ABC, one of the approved COUNTER auditors, and is especially aimed at content providers that is publishers and vendors preparing for a COUNTER audit. The guidelines apply whichever auditor you plan to use. This is a revised recording to reflect some minor changes in Release 5.0.2 of the COUNTER Code of Practice published in 2021.
COUNTER compliance requires all publishers and vendors to undergo an independent audit of their counter usage reports. In this tutorial, we explain what an audit looks like and what the process is to complete an audit for Release 5 of the COUNTER Code of Practice. So what is a COUNTER audit? An approved auditor completes a COUNTER audit. Their role is to independently verify that your usage reports are being generated in compliance with the COUNTER Code of Practice.
Auditing will involve them using your service to review and check your usage reporting, looking for any inaccuracies and suggesting improvements if they are required. Next, it's important to gain an understanding of the Code of Practice. Then you choose an auditor and finally, you should review your own usage reports. Let's go into these steps in a little more detail.
The first step is for your organization to become a member of COUNTER. You will then contact the Director to agree which COUNTER usage reports are relevant to the type of content you publish and therefore which reports you will be required to have audited. Table three be in Section 3 of the Code of Practice is a very useful resource when deciding which counter reports are suitable for your type of content.
The second step is to familiarize yourself with the Code of Practice. Remember, the Code of Practice enables providers to produce consistent, comparable credible usage data for their online content. It can be quite technical, so we recommend you check out the Friendly Guide first on the COUNTER website. You will also find a useful introduction to COUNTER_SUSHI. This is the standard for software developers to use to allow software to automatically retrieve all the possible reports for all supported time ranges for a given library or consortium when reading the Code of Practice,
it is very important to review section 3, the technical specifications for COUNTER reports and appendix E, the audit requirements and tests. These can all be found on the COUNTER website. The next step is choosing your auditor. When appointing your auditor, part of your conversation with them will be around agreeing which month you would like to audit. This Foundation Class has been produced in collaboration with ABC, who is an approved auditor.
Contact details for all of the approved auditors are available on the COUNTER website. We will also accept an audit by any chartered accountant in the UK or CPA in the USA or their equivalent elsewhere. The fourth step is for you to review your usage reports to ensure they follow the Code of Practice. You need to review both the tabular reports and the COUNTER_SUSHI reports. To help achieve a smooth audit has provided very useful Validation Tools to help check the format of your reports.
You will find the COUNTER Validation Tool on the COUNTER website. This free tool will help you pass your COUNTER audit. You will need to register, but once done, you can upload and test your tabular reports and COUNTER_SUSHI reports. It takes just seconds to validate each report, and you can download or email the validation results. These validation results show if there are any errors in your reports where the errors occur and the nature of the errors.
Don't forget to test the Master Reports and the Standard Views. So now you know how to prepare for an audit. Let's take a look at what a typical COUNTER audit looks like. A COUNTER audit follows a three-stage process, and here's what you can expect in each of them. In stage one, your auditor will start exploring your site, understanding how their activity will produce specific metrics and confirming how these metrics are reported.
They will need your help in providing login details and appropriate access rights, and they may have some compliance suggestions for you at this stage. In stage two, your auditor will create activity on your site as if they are an institutional user. This will populate your usage reports for them. In stage three, your auditor will download the usage reports based on their activity to check them against the activities they undertook.
They will be looking to confirm three things in accordance with the Code of Practice. First, that the figures are correct. Second, that they are in the correct format. And third, that they are outputted correctly. If all has gone well and no issues arise, you will receive a report from your auditor confirming successful completion. This report will be shared with COUNTER so that your entry on the COUNTER Registry of compliant publishers can be updated.
This page shows the date of your COUNTER audit, the date you passed, the audit and when your next audit is due. It also lists the compliance reports available from your organization, you will also need to share with COUNTER your sushi details so they may be added to your entry in the COUNTER Registry. If any non-compliance issues are found, your auditor will advise you and COUNTER of what they are and work with you to correct them.
The Code of Practice allows up to three months for corrections to be made. Once you believe all the issues are resolved, your auditor will rerun the usage reports and check them against the original activity in order to confirm their compliance. Upon successful completion, you will receive a report from your auditor confirming compliance, which will be shared with COUNTER so they can update the Registry on the COUNTER website.
Once you've received the good news and your COUNTER compliant, we're sure you'll want to promote the achievement. The easiest way to do this is to use the COUNTER date stamped logo, which COUNTER will send to you. You can use this in your promotional material, on your website and in your email signature. The date stamped logo must link back to your entry on the counter registry of compliance.
COUNTER will also ask you to provide all the information they need to complete your entry in the COUNTER Registry of Compliance. This includes the details of how librarians can contact you if they have queries about your reports and how they can obtain the details they need to harvest your COUNTER_SUSHI reports. The time involved in completing your COUNTER audit is partly dependent on the number of usage reports to be checked, but it will typically require around three months to complete all three stages of the audit, assuming everything runs smoothly.
The word audit might be a little frightening, but these steps, coupled with the information provided in the Friendly Guides and other Foundation Classes, should help ensure it's something simple and easy to do and remember, as one of the approved auditors, ABC is here to help you every step of the way. We have many other resources you might find useful on our website, www.projectcounter.org You will find our Friendly Guides, including the Technical Guide that introduces the audit in more detail, and our YouTube channel carries classes on many different aspects of the COUNTER Code of Practice Release 5.
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