IRUS-UK collects usage data from UK institutional repositories and provides statistics and reports to help repositories understand download trends and benchmark performance. It collects raw download data from repositories using EPrints, DSpace and Fedora and filters robot activity before processing daily provisional and monthly statistics. The presentation provided examples of IRUS-UK reports and how one university uses the data for quality checks, benchmarking, advocacy and promoting repository content.

2. Getting value from institutional
repositories: IRUS-UK
Jo Alcock, Evidence Base (IRUS-UK)
Jackie Proven, University of St Andrews

3. Getting value from institutional repositories: IRUS-UK
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» Institutional Repository Usage Statistics – United Kingdom
» Collects raw usage data from UK institutional repositories for all
item types
› Not just articles
› Downloads not record views
» Displays statistics (using different reports) for originating
repositories to use
» Gives a wider picture of the overall use of UK repositories
What is IRUS-UK?

4. Getting value from institutional repositories: IRUS-UK
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» Use a push ‘tracker’ – whenever a download occurs the repository
‘pings’ the IRUS-UK server with details about the download
› Currently available for EPrints, DSpace, and Fedora repositories (hope
to add more in future)
» Apply the COUNTER Code of Practice to filter out robots and
double clicks
» Apply additional IRUS-UK filters to remove more user agents and
apply a simple threshold for ‘overactive’ IP addresses
» Process daily provisional stats and reprocess monthly
How does IRUS-UK collect and process data?

5. Overall Summary
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IRUS-UK screenshot
Getting value from institutional repositories: IRUS-UK
Skip

6. Repository Statistics
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IRUS-UK screenshot
Getting value from institutional repositories: IRUS-UK

7. Ingest Summary Statistics
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IRUS-UK screenshot
Getting value from institutional repositories: IRUS-UK

8. Item Report 1: Number of Successful Item Requests by Month and
Repository Identifier
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IRUS-UK screenshot
Getting value from institutional repositories: IRUS-UK

9. Item Report 1: Number of Successful Item Requests by Month and
Repository Identifier
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IRUS-UK screenshot
Getting value from institutional repositories: IRUS-UK

10. Item Report 2: Number of Successful Item Requests by Month and ItemType
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IRUS-UK screenshot
Getting value from institutional repositories: IRUS-UK

11. Item Report 2: Number of Successful Item Requests by Month and ItemType
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IRUS-UK screenshot
Getting value from institutional repositories: IRUS-UK

12. ElectronicThesis or Dissertation Report 1 (ETD1): Number of SuccessfulTheses
or Dissertation Downloads Requests by Month and Repository Identifier
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IRUS-UK screenshot
Getting value from institutional repositories: IRUS-UK

13. ElectronicThesis or Dissertation Report 1 (ETD1): Number of SuccessfulTheses
or Dissertation Downloads Requests by Month and Repository Identifier
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IRUS-UK screenshot
Getting value from institutional repositories: IRUS-UK

14. Search
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IRUS-UK screenshot
Getting value from institutional repositories: IRUS-UK

15. Item Statistics
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IRUS-UK screenshot
Getting value from institutional repositories: IRUS-UK

16. Article DOI Summary Statistics
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IRUS-UK screenshot
Getting value from institutional repositories: IRUS-UK

17. DOI Duplicates Report 1 (DD1): Items with Duplicate DOIs within Repository
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IRUS-UK screenshot
Getting value from institutional repositories: IRUS-UK

18. Repository Report 1 (RR1) – Number of Successful Item Download Requests
by Month and Repository
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IRUS-UK screenshot
Getting value from institutional repositories: IRUS-UK

19. Repository Report 1 (RR1) – Number of Successful Item Download
Requests by Month and Repository
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IRUS-UK screenshot
Getting value from institutional repositories: IRUS-UK

20. EThOS integration
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IRUS-UK screenshot
Getting value from institutional repositories: IRUS-UK

21. Altmetrics integration
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IRUS-UK screenshot
Getting value from institutional repositories: IRUS-UK

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» Provide standards-based reliable repository statistics:
› “I use IRUS-UK as the gold standard for accuracy.”
Middlesex University
› “Provides a way to externally verify the statistics I’m providing to
my stakeholders.”
University ofWarwick
How can you use IRUS-UK data?
Getting value from institutional repositories: IRUS-UK

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» Report to institutional managers:
› In the 2014 IRUS-UK user survey, 84% of respondents reported using
IRUS-UK for regular reporting to management
› “We do a monthly update and then I will do ad hoc reports for individual
faculties”
Open University
How can you use IRUS-UK data?
Getting value from institutional repositories: IRUS-UK

24. Getting value from institutional repositories: IRUS-UK
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» Report to researchers:
› “We get a lot of requests from academics asking about the downloads of
their research, particularly at annual review time”
University ofWarwick
› “I will also do ad hoc reports on how many downloads an item or series of
items has had for researchers to report back to funders”
Open University
How can you use IRUS-UK data?

25. Getting value from institutional repositories: IRUS-UK
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» Benchmarking:
› “Interesting to compare how your repository is performing with other
similarly sized repositories or similarly sized research institutions”
University of Strathclyde
› “RR1 is a useful overview for getting a sense of where we fit with other
repositories...The fact you can see everything together is really useful”
Northumbria University
How can you use IRUS-UK data?

26. Getting value from institutional repositories: IRUS-UK
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» Supporting advocacy:
› “The most common use for repository statistics is in presentations - we
can use them to show the type of usage, and to demonstrate the usage
and broad range of use. For a particular item type we can talk about a
news story or blog which can show a spike in downloads that
corresponds to the publicity.”
University of St Andrews
How can you use IRUS-UK data?

27. IRUS-UK at University of St Andrews
Jackie Proven, University of St Andrews

28. Using IRUS-UK to check repository health
University of St Andrews

29. » Repository infrastructure
» IRUS-UK implementation
» Our content: quality of metadata
» Checking the pulse (trends, comparisons)
» Promoting and validating ebook usage
» Promoting and comparing article usage
» Part of a healthy community
IRUS-UK: St Andrews case study
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30. IRUS-UK: St Andrews case study
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CRIS/repository overview
DSpace

31. IRUS-UK: St Andrews case study
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» Dspace hosted by Scottish Digital Library Consortium (SDLC)
» Dspace plugin and support provided by IRUS-UK
» First SDLC implementation (RGU) Dec 2012
» St Andrews patching and testing Feb-Mar 2013
» Implemented April 2013, rolled out to other SDLC sites
» Analysis, feedback and discussion on stats and reports
» Joined IRUS-UK CommunityAdvisory Group Feb 2014
IRUS-UK implementation

32. Metadata quality: checking DOIs
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» MetadataViews > Article DOI
summary report by IR
» Check%withDOIs,investigate…
» Statistics Reports > Article
Report (AR4)
› order by DOI
› see what needs fixed
› understand reasons,
e.g. OJS journals
» DOI duplicates (DD1)
IRUS-UK: St Andrews case study
Doi Inthanon, highest mountain in Thailand

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IRUS-UK: St Andrews case study

34. 09/03/15 Jisc Digital Festival, 9-10 March 2015, ICC Birmingham 34
IRUS-UK: St Andrews case study
No DOI

35. Item in Dspace without DOI
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IRUS-UK: St Andrews case study
Add DOI in Pure

36. Checking the pulse
(trends, comparisons)
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» Comparisons with other
repositories
» Comparison with Google
Analytics
» Differences in item types
» Unusual behaviour (theses)
IRUS-UK: St Andrews case study

37. IRUS-UK ETD Report (ETD1) IRUS-UK Item Report (IR1)
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IRUS-UK: St Andrews case study
Google Analytics

38. IRUS-UK: St Andrews case study
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» Collaboration with Research Centre:
› St Andrews Studies in French History and Culture
› Repository as primary publishing source of ebook series
› Case study published
» Validating open access publishing route
Promoting ebook usage

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IRUS-UK: St Andrews case study

40. IRUS-UK: St Andrews case study
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» Top downloads (AR4)
» Promoting use of our content
Promoting article usage
univstandrews-oaresearch.blogspot.co.uk

41. IRUS-UK: St Andrews case study
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» Comparing usage of mirrored OA content
» Articles in more than one repository
Comparing article usage

42. IRUS-UK: St Andrews case study
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Comparing article usage
PDF downloads: Repositories 141 / Publisher 326

43. Part of a healthy community
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» Learning from peers
» Involved in developments
» Understanding metrics
» Supporting open access
» DOIs for other content types
» Sharing common standards
(COUNTER)
» RecommendingIRUS-compliance
for Pure via UK User Group
IRUS-UK: St Andrews case study
PhotographtakenbyE.Gilchrist attheGoldenTriangle AsianElephantFoundation, ChiangRai,Thailand.
From Plotnik JM, de Waal FBM. (2014) Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) reassure others in
distress. PeerJ 2:e278 dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.278 distributed under the terms of the Creative
Commons Attribution License

44. Find out more…
Contact…
Except where otherwise noted, this
work is licensed under CC-BY-NC-ND
Jackie Proven
Repository andOpenAccess services
manager, University of St Andrews
jep10@st-andrews.ac.uk
openaccess.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/

45. Find out more…
Contact…
Except where otherwise noted, this
work is licensed under CC-BY-NC-ND
Jo Alcock
Evidence based researcher
irus@mimas.ac.uk
irus.mimas.ac.uk