> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://the-academic-observatory.gitbook.io/bas/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://the-academic-observatory.gitbook.io/bas/dashboard-overview/dashboard-data-sources.md).

# Dashboard data sources

## What are the Dashboard’s data sources?

To see the data sources for a specific Dashboard, click on **About** page on the Dashboard, and consult the list at Data Sources. The only obligatory data source is for the ONIX feed for each book title; each publisher then chooses the other data sources they wish to include on their Dashboard.

The standard data sources currently available to be included in the Dashboard are detailed in the tables below. Other data sources and variables may be supported as an extra add-on service.

### **Where the Dashboard gets title metadata from**

| Data source                   | Status  | Access  |
| ----------------------------- | ------- | ------- |
| Crossref metadata             | Current | Public  |
| OAPEN metadata                | Current | Public  |
| ONIX-FTP feed from publishers | Current | Private |
| Thoth                         | Current | Public  |

### Where the Dashboard gets usage data from

<table><thead><tr><th width="172">Data source</th><th width="100">Status</th><th width="103.7109375">Access</th><th width="213">COUNTER-conformant?</th><th>Time aggregation</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Google Analytics Universal</td><td>Not current</td><td>Private</td><td>No</td><td>Monthly</td></tr><tr><td>Google Books</td><td>Current</td><td>Private</td><td>No</td><td>Monthly</td></tr><tr><td>IRUS Fulcrum</td><td>Current</td><td>Private</td><td>Yes</td><td>Monthly</td></tr><tr><td>IRUS OAPEN</td><td>Current</td><td>Private</td><td>Yes</td><td>Monthly</td></tr><tr><td>JSTOR</td><td>Current</td><td>Private</td><td>Yes</td><td>Monthly</td></tr><tr><td>MUSE</td><td>Current</td><td>Private</td><td>Yes (books), No (chapter)</td><td>Monthly</td></tr><tr><td>UCL Discovery</td><td>Current</td><td>Public</td><td>No</td><td>Monthly</td></tr></tbody></table>

#### Mentions and page views

| Data source                | Field for Page Views |
| -------------------------- | -------------------- |
| Google Analytics Universal | \[page\_views]       |

#### Book views and downloads

| Data source                | Field for Book Views       | Field for Book Downloads                        |
| -------------------------- | -------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------- |
| Google Analytics Universal | Not available              | Yes (with custom dimensions)                    |
| Google Books               | \[BV\_with\_Pages\_Viewed] | \[qty]                                          |
| IRUS Fulcrum               | Not available              | \[total\_item\_requests]                        |
| IRUS OAPEN                 | Not available              | \[title\_requests] and \[total\_item\_requests] |
| UCL Discovery              | Not available              | \[total\_downloads]\`                           |
| MUSE                       | Not available              | \[book\_usage]                                  |

#### Chapter downloads

<table><thead><tr><th width="253">Data source</th><th>Field for Chapter Downloads</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>JSTOR</td><td>[total_item_requests]</td></tr><tr><td>MUSE</td><td>[chapter usage]</td></tr></tbody></table>

## Public access data sources - no access permission required

The *public access data sources* are those where data is made publicly available by the data source. No additional access permission is required from Dashboard partners for the Dashboard to obtain the following data sources if a partner wishes for them to be included on their dashboard/s.

### Crossref metadata

Crossref is a not-for-profit membership organisation, and an official Digital Object Identifier (DOI) Registration Agency of the International DOI Foundation. The organisation makes metadata available for all DOIs registered with [Crossref](https://www.crossref.org/community/). BAS can use Crossref metadata to match ISBNs obtained from a publisher's ONIX feed to DOIs.

### OAPEN metadata

OAPEN enables libraries and aggregators to use the metadata of all available titles in the OAPEN Library. The OAPEN metadata is available in different data formats - BAS harvests the data in XML format and converts it into ONIX format for the OAPEN platform.

### Thoth

Thoth is a free, open metadata service that publishers can use as a metadata storage solution. Thoth can provide metadata in a number of formats. BAS uses the [Thoth export API](https://export.thoth.pub/#get-/formats/-format_id-) to download metadata for publishers in ONIX format.

### UCL Discovery

University College London (UCL) is an eBook publisher, and partner in the BAS project. UCL Discovery is UCL's open access repository, showcasing and providing access to the full texts of UCL research publications. BAS can include UCL Discovery book usage data.

## Private access data sources - access permission required

### Google Analytics Universal

Google Analytics Universal monitors and records web traffic for specific websites. If a Dashboard partner had configured Google Analytics on their publisher website, the Google Analytics data can be used to find out which countries and territories website visitors are from.

### Google Books

The Google Books Partner program hosts eBooks, including some free open access eBooks. eBook publishers can then download usage reports from [Google Books](https://play.google.com/books/publish/).  BAS uses data from the Google Play sales transaction report and the Google Books Traffic Report.

### JSTOR

[JSTOR](https://about.jstor.org/librarians/books/open-access-books-jstor/) is a digital library offering over 7,000 open access eBooks. Publisher usage reports from JSTOR offer details about the use (views and downloads) of eBooks by institution, and country.

### ONIX-FTP feed from publishers

[ONIX](https://www.editeur.org/83/Overview/) is a standard that book publishers use to share information about the books that they have published. BAS dashboard partners that have ONIX feeds are given credentials and access to their own upload folder on the Mellon SFTP server. Each publisher uploads their ONIX feed to their upload folder on a weekly, fortnightly, or monthly basis. The BAS data workflow downloads the ONIX data, transforms it (with the ONIX parser Java command line tool) and then loads it into BigQuery for further processing.

## Private access data sources - no additional access permission required

### IRUS Fulcrum

IRUS provides COUNTER standard access reports for eBooks hosted on the Fulcrum platform. [Fulcrum](https://www.press.umich.edu/librarians) is a “community-developed, open source platform for digital scholarship” which provides “users the ability to read books with associated digital enhancements, such as: 3-D models, embedded audio, video, and databases; zoomable online images, and interactive media”.

### IRUS OAPEN

IRUS provides COUNTER standard access reports for eBooks hosted on the [OAPEN library and platform](https://oapen.org/). OAPEN "promotes and supports the transition to open access for academic books by providing open infrastructure services to stakeholders in scholarly communication". Almost all eBooks on OAPEN are provided as a PDF file for the whole book. The reports from IRUS show access figures for each month, and the location (IP address) of the access. Within the OAPEN Google Cloud project (located in Europe), IP addresses are replaced with geographical information (city and country). This means that IP addresses are not stored within BAS data, and only de-identified geographical information is transferred to BAS.