From January 2022, IRUS-UK R5 will become the primary service and the place to go for new monthly usage data for institutional repositories.

What is IRUS R5?

IRUS (Institutional Repository Usage Statistics) enables institutional repositories (IRs) to share and expose statistics based on the COUNTER standard. It provides an aggregated view of repository usage to benefit organisations, it offers opportunities for benchmarking, and acts as an intermediary between repositories and other agencies.

The R5 service supports the latest version of the COUNTER Code of Practice, Release 5 (R5) by including metadata views as well as requests and a new set of reports.  It already includes R5 data back to January 2020.

Another important change is that that the service is now openly available (no login required). We have also taken on feedback from previous surveys to improve the interface and offer more flexible ways to access and use the data.  To see a demo of the new service, you can watch a recording of our webinar IRUS R5: open and flexible access to standardised repository usage data.

What about the current “R4” site?

We have been running both the existing (R4) and the new (R5) services in parallel since December 2020. For the last year, we have been focusing our development effort on improving the new service and so have only added new repositories to the R5 service.

From January 2022, we plan to archive the R4 site and direct everyone visiting “irus.jisc.ac.uk” to the new version.  You will still be able to access the R4 reports and data via a link on the new site, but we will no longer add new monthly data to the R4 site.  Data for January 2022 onwards will only be available via IRUS R5.  This will allow us to devote more time to R5 developments.

What developments are planned?

From recent feedback and usage data, we know that there are some popular or desirable features not yet available in the R5 service. Here is an update on some key features we are prioritising.

1. Management reports

We will be adding 3 reports to the “Manage” area. The popular Duplicate DOI report we should have in place by January. Item Type mapping report and Ingest and exclusion stats reports will also follow by the end of January.

2. Search functionality

We are actively working on this.  Our intention is to make this feature available with title/author search as soon as possible but we still need to iron out a few things and ensure we have the internal operational processes in place.

3. Ease of access to past “R4 data”

We are exploring ways in which we can link back to R4 data or surface R4 data in the new service to make it easier for you to see the complete history of an item or repository.

4. ORCIDs

Support for ORCIDs will be re-introduced as a priority development. As with the R4 service, the same caveats apply around coverage since are reliant on repositories exposing ORCIDs accurately, and consistently, in their metadata.

5. Viewing CORE data

We have R5 data for CORE but we need to consider how best to combine and surface CORE data alongside IR data as the approaches used in R4 were not ideal or robust.  We will be working with the CORE team from January.

Tell us what you think

If you have any questions or concerns, please do get in touch.  Please do try out the new reports and let us know what you think through this feedback form or by contacting us at help@jisc.ac.uk with IRUS or IRUS-UK in the subject field.