Purdue Libraries and School of Information Studies News

Tracking the Global Impact of Purdue Scholarship and Research: The Purdue e-Pubs Readership Activity Map

October 21st, 2014

With making published scholarship and research open access, how can one see the impact it makes beyond numbers and figures? This also asks the bigger question – Does making my scholarship and research open access actually make a global impact? At Purdue the answer is Yes. Through the Purdue e-Pubs readership activity map, Purdue authors can visually see the global impact their published scholarship and research makes by making their publications open access through the Purdue e-Pubs institutional document repository.

Built upon a Google maps platform, the readership activity map is a real-time visualization of full-text COUNTER compliant downloads happening from around the globe. Users who visit Purdue e-Pubs are greeted with the map from the repository’s homepage. After a short introduction the pins begin populating the map every time a download appears. The map informs users where the reader is located (city, state, country), the publication that was downloaded, and the series or collection the publication came from. Users also have the ability to click on a previously dropped pin to see the same information on that download. The map also informs users how many real-time full-text downloads have occurred since the map began playing through its time stamped download counter. Additionally, the map highlights the total number of papers, downloads, and the number of downloads in the past year from within the repository.

No matter the time of day, users are downloading documents from Purdue e-Pubs. “It could be the middle of the afternoon on Purdue’s campus, yet evening in Europe or the middle of the night in China, and downloads from readers are still happening in those locations. It’s mesmerizing to see the “pins” populating the map,” says Purdue University Dean of Libraries Jim Mullins. “The Purdue e-Pubs readership activity map effectively highlights the global impact Purdue makes through its support of open access.”

For more information about the Purdue e-Pubs repository, readership activity map, or adding your previously published scholarship and research to the repository, please contact Dave Scherer, scholarly repository specialist, at 765-494-8511 or dscherer@purdue.edu.