Get to know your users and maximize your resources with powerful usage reports in ISI Web of KnowledgeSM

 

Patricia Brennan
Product Development Manager
Thomson Scientific

Thomson Scientific launched the ISI Web of KnowledgeSM Usage Reporting System (WURS) in early 2003, in response to input from valued customers. This month’s upgrade will provide a more robust, flexible, and user-friendly environment for understanding and analyzing usage data.

New enhancements make usage reports even more helpful

The upgrade to the reporting system will add the following features:

  • All-product and multi-product summary reports, enabling comparisons through and across products and time frames
  • Hyperlinks to data definitions — improving ease of use
  • New output options for COUNTER-formatted reports
  • XML output option that conforms to the COUNTER DTD
  • Administrators will be able to manage and update contact information

These new features, along with the system’s key features, allow library managers to further customize the way they track usage at their institution:

  • Customers can access their reports anytime with ID and password, from the integrated, Web-based system
  • The data are updated monthly, with daily or monthly displays, and an archive of up to three years
  • COUNTER-compliant usage reports
  • Advanced usage tracking of additional metrics including records viewed, citation events, records printed, and other unique features of Thomson Scientific products
  • Graphic displays enable administrators to easily spot trends
  • Reports for consortia
  • Multiple download options including Microsoft Excel and HTML
  • Linking reports track inter-product usage (from product to product within ISI Web of Knowledge), and outbound links from records in ISI Web of Knowledge to publishers’ full text. Users can access two kinds of usage reports for full-text publisher links; the all-publisher snapshot view, and the individual publisher view, which displays all of the journals by publisher
  • Search, Citation, and Table-of-Contents alerting reports.

Usage and linking reports provide critical data

Librarians can use usage and linking reports to:

  • Keep track of how resources are being used—how often are users accessing the resources and when do they use them? Analysis of when sessions occur indicates times of peak usage at the institution.
  • Get the most out of available resources—where are users coming from? Analysis by IP address enables understanding of how local communities or departments access the products.
  • Identify training needs—are users taking full advantage of product features? Analysis of activity reports help administrators identify which aspects of each product are most heavily used and which features may be under-utilized.
  • Take full advantage of complementary products available on ISI Web of Knowledge—inter-product links reports demonstrate how users move between database products and analytical tools.
  • Understand use of journals by the users—publisher full-text links reports indicate how often users link from ISI Web of Knowledge to a journal title.
  • Ensure users are making the most of ISI Web of Knowledge alerting capabilities—summary reports for Search, Citation and Table-of-Contents alerts help administrators manage these services.

The key to understanding and promoting usage

Thomson Scientific has created a usage reporting system which delivers customized, targeted reports for each ISI Web of Knowledge subscriber - enabling librarians to easily pinpoint which resources are being used most and how they are being used.

Much more than just a count of searches, the ISI Web of Knowledge Usage Reporting System is a valuable tool that helps librarians understand their users, and helps them get the most out of ISI Web of Knowledge.