What's the exact view count statistics and when is it updated?

Hi there, thanks for all your help. However, I fear I have a series of very stupid questions – though if you can point me in the right direction, that would be wonderful.

  1. What is the correct view/download counter for any given article in my journal?
  2. How often does the system update this?
    The reasons I’m asking are the following:

A. If I go to “Editing” for any published article, there is a column “VIEWS” under “Layout → Galley Format → 1. PDF”. What does this mean? Surely not the total number of views or downloads by readers. The number is relatively SMALL in most cases (which may, of course, mean that not many readers viewed the particular piece).

B. If, as Journal Manager, I go to “Stats & Reports”, there’s a bunch of seemingly relevant statistics. I am interested in the total views or downloads of all material published in the past 8 years of the journal. I assumed I should use “View Report”. That gives me a spreadsheet with the filename <views-20150613.csv>, for example, if downloaded today on 13 June 2015. Here I find ENORMOUS numbers for both “Abstract Views” and “Total Galley Views”/“PDF” (these two columns have the same number).

For a piece at hand, for example, method A. above gives me 14 views, but method B lists 1639 abstract views and 1836 galley views. Moreover, when I now download the same piece again and then request a new stats report, the numbers don’t change.

I hope my questions are clear, apologies for the cumbersome way, but I’m not a techie and have the feeling that I don’t really know what I’m doing – but I would like to find out the download numbers for my journal.

Many thanks,
Kleanthes

Hi @kakis

I assume you were using an older OJS version and that you upgraded recently right?

So, the numbers you see using the View report are related to the old way of counting statistics. After your most recent upgrade, OJS introduced a new way to count usage statistics, and this is the number that’s shown to you in the views column, inside the article editing page. That’s why it is not as high as the views report, because it started to count just recently (since your last upgrade).

If you want to check the older stats data, then use the views report or any other report listed in the stats page, making sure that you opt to use the old stats data when this option is available. The view report automatically uses that, so you don’t need to worry about that there.

But if you want to check the stats for your most recent published articles, you should use the same reports but without opting to generate them using the old data. All the other reports, except from the view report, uses the new stats data. If you want to generate a view report using the new stats data, check this documentation: http://pkp.sfu.ca/wiki/index.php?title=PKP_Statistics_Framework#Report_Generation

I hope I could help you. Let me know if you have any more doubts.

Cheers,
Bruno

Thank you very much for your detailed response, Bruno, and please, please accept my apologies for the terrible delay in response. I was frantically trying to finish the job I needed the numbers for on time and then went on a long conference trip.

In any case, I will keep monitoring downloads now that I know a bit more, and try to understand how I can add up downloads from the old system and the new one. At least now I know where to turn to when in doubt. :smile:

Many thanks, K

Hi @beghelli,

We have recently upgraded from 2.3.7 to 2.4.6.

I was having a read in below posts:

  1. https://pkp.sfu.ca/support/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13202#p50800
  2. https://pkp.sfu.ca/support/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13202#p51801

I didn’t exactly get that is conceptually it is alright to sum stats from old metrics and new metrics. first one to me says it is not OK to combine results, the second says it is OK.

Sorry I am a bit confused here. Our journal manager needs stats of the articles view and download from the time of publication (which is way behind the upgrade time). Is it OK to sum the results from “View Report” and “Timed Views Report”?

Thanks heaps
Ghazal

@salehig,

It is ok to sum the stats as long as you understand that they count stats a little bit different. Before the upgrade the rules to avoid double clicking and the bot list were different, for example.

And you can’t sum different reports. You will only double the current stats. You need to pick one report, let’s say the View one, and generate it using the old stats and the new stats (before and after the upgrade). Then you sum both values. To generate View report using the new stats, see here: https://pkp.sfu.ca/wiki/index.php?title=PKP_Statistics_Framework#Report_Generation

Cheers,
Bruno

Thank you very much for the clarification. It’s great to know we can sum the stats.

Best Regards

Hello people.

I have a problem with Report_Generation. I move 2.3.7 to 2.4.8 and I try go Report I see this and not download archive:

I see this post: My published file views or statistics reports shows no data. What do I do?
and everything Ok .
after that I read this: https://pkp.sfu.ca/wiki/index.php?title=PKP_Statistics_Framework#Migrating_stats_again

In the database 2.3.7 I see this table: counter_monthly_log

but don’t timed_view_log (don’t exist)

In database 2.4.8 don’t exist any of two (timed_view_log and counter_monthly_log )

I think that the problem that does not work the report is due to this. I do not know how to fix it. Any suggestions?

P.D: Recently I see this post: OJS 2.4.7-1 statistical data - #2 by ctgraham

and
It is correct that database 2.4.8 are not in those tables, but it does not work for me reports. so?

In 2.4.8, legacy statistics are moved from “counter_monthly_log” and “timed_view_log” into the “metrics” table instead.

It looks like you are at the right place to generate a custom report. If you click the button, and the spinner appears indefinitely, check your PHP error log for more information.

Do the other reports work for you?

  • Informe COUNTER
  • Informe de artículos
  • etc

Yes. I read this after I write post.

other reports work ? →
Yes ( I thing) for example “Informe de estadísticas de uso de OJS” return this:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1y7KyAusEdR4pOp5r7C_jRRjUgas8MBLy18ygxGcYUJw/edit?usp=sharing

If I filter this for “Tipo”(Type) → Article-> Retunrn less than 68 elements ( the number have 68 elements), Which does not make me very clear that is what returns but seems to work.

Number elements=68

When doing this query I do not receive any php error

Returning to the initial question:
When I click the button and the spinner appears indefinitely →
php log show for the all cases ( in Plantillas de informe por defecto or Opciones Avanzadas):

[Tue Apr 25 13:17:32.462352 2017] [:error] [pid 8419] [client 127.0.0.1:35791] NOTICE: Use of undefined constant TIME_FILTER_OPTION_YERSTERDAY - assumed ‘TIME_FILTER_OPTION_YERSTERDAY’ (/var/www/ojs248/controllers/statistics/form/ReportGeneratorForm.inc.php:277), referer: http://127.0.0.1/ojs248/index.php/PAMPA/manager/reportGenerator

any ideas?

That constant being undefined is unlikely to cause the problem you are seeing. (I would expect to see a PHP Fatal error or similar.)

On the other hand, does your file “controllers/statistics/form/ReportGeneratorForm.inc.php” look like this:

Maybe your 2.4.8 code is not consistent with the delivered source. How did you upgrade?

  1. Full Package - I have not made local code modifications
  2. Upgrading the OJS database

After obtaining the latest OJS code, an additional script must be run to
complete the upgrade process by upgrading the OJS database and potentially
executing additional upgrade code.

This script can be executed from the command-line or via the OJS web interface.

  1. Command-line

If you have the CLI version of PHP installed (e.g., /usr/bin/php), you can
upgrade the database as follows:

- Edit config.inc.php and change "installed = On" to "installed = Off"
- Run the following command from the OJS directory (not including the $):
  $ php tools/upgrade.php upgrade
- Re-edit config.inc.php and change "installed = Off" back to
   "installed = On"


I did not do this:

Stats Migration

To be able to run the upgrade process and to correctly migrate the old statistics
data, you will have to download the geolocalization database. To install it
you can execute the following steps:

Linux:
1 - open a shell prompt
2 - go into OJS installation’s base directory
2 - wget http://geolite.maxmind.com/download/geoip/database/GeoLiteCity.dat.gz
3 - gunzip GeoLiteCity.dat.gz
4 - mv GeoLiteCity.dat plugins/generic/usageStats

Is the line define('TIME_FILTER_OPTION_YESTERDAY', 0); present in your file controllers/statistics/form/ReportGeneratorForm.inc.php at line 19?

If so, it is odd that you would get a warning about it being undefined.