Beginning in October 2025, an important update will be made to the COUNTER-compliant usage statistics reports for IEEE Xplore subscribers. 

COUNTER is an international initiative, serving librarians and publishers by setting standards via their Code of Practice that ensures vendors and publishers can provide their library customers with consistent, credible and comparable usage data. IEEE makes this data available to customers via MPS, a COUNTER-compliant usage statistics site, to help subscribing institutions better understand how their users access content in IEEE Xplore.

IEEE is an active participant in COUNTER, and we have worked to ensure compliance with this latest release. Release 5.1 of the Counter Code of Practice, known as COUNTER5.1 or COP5.1, is the most recent update. IEEE will begin posting customer usage statistics that are compliant with COP5.1 beginning in the last week of October for all usage that occurred in the time period of January through September 2025. 

A few important details to note about the new COP5.1 reports:

  • Article Requests by Type Report: This custom report from IEEE is still available and is still the most comprehensive view of usage activity for IEL subscribers. It includes usage activity for all journal, conference and standards documents.
  • Variances from Prior Reports: You may notice some variances in the COP 5.1 compliant version of your reports compared to prior reports.  Any such variances may be due to the new COP5.1 reporting metrics which can make it challenging to accurately compare current year usage stats vs prior year stats. It is important to note the possibility that the usage patterns of your users may not have actually changed, but perhaps it is merely the way that usage is reported that has changed.
  • New Access Types and Definitions: With the new 5.1 protocol, COUNTER has introduced a new access type and updated the access type definitions. Materials that are freely available on a publisher platform to view by all visitors but are not labeled as “OA” by the Publisher are now labeled with a new access type called “Free to Read”. In COP 5.0, usage of “Free To Read” items were reported within the “Controlled” access type. In the new COP 5.1 version of the reports, this usage will be listed separately.
  • Change to eBook Reporting: In addition, Counter 5.1 introduces new item-level reporting for books. For example, when a user downloads a complete 10-chapter book with just one click, this usage was reported as one eBook download in the prior COP 5.0 reports. But with new COP 5.1 item-level reporting in place, the publisher can accurately report usage of chapters. So in the new reports, the full book download would be more accurately reported as 10 chapter downloads. This more detailed usage would be reported in the TR_B1  (Book Requests) report.
  • Conferences and Standards Level Reporting: In COP5.0 reports, usage for Conferences, Standards and Courses were all listed under a “Data_type” category called  “Other” with the Conferences and Standards usage then listed as “Sub Types” within that category.  In the new COP 5.1 reports, the “Data_type” list will now include additional separate categories for conferences and standards. Courses will continue to be listed under the “Other” Data_type.

Please note that there is no action required on your part and you do not need to do anything to switch over to the COP5.1 reports. For more detailed information and guides on the COUNTER COP5.1 metrics, you can visit the COUNTER website at www.projectcounter.org/.

Additional Resources:

(accessible to authorized administrators of institutional subscriptions)