Okay, so the “File Visits” in the “View Usage Statistics” only records the downloads from the view item page, correct or does it gather other download requests as well?
I’m just trying to get a handle on what information is captured from visits to the actual item view page versus downloads from Google Scholar and where/how that information is captured. It seems like neither Google Analytics nor the native Dspace usage stats are capturing everything, am I understanding this correctly? Thanks, susan — Susan Borda Digital Technologies Development Librarian Montana State University Library 406-994-1873 From: Andrea Schweer <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Date: Tuesday, November 17, 2015 at 2:32 PM To: Susan Borda <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>, "[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>" <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Subject: Re: [dspace-community] File Visits = downloads? Hi Susan, On 18/11/15 09:56, Borda, Susan wrote: We have GA implemented via a this bit of code in item-view.xsl: onclick="ga('send', 'event', 'File Downloads', 'Click', 'View/Open');” Is this the out of the box option you mentioned? <https://wiki.duraspace.org/display/DSDOC5x/DSpace+Google+Analytics+Statistics> https://wiki.duraspace.org/display/DSDOC5x/DSpace+Google+Analytics+Statistics No, it's not. Your version indeed sends the "a file has been downloaded" information to Google Analytics when the user clicks on a download link on the item page. So in order for this to work, the user actually has to get to the item page (which isn't the case for the scenario I mentioned, someone clicking on a PDF link on a search engine results page, or other external links directly to the PDF). This isn't in item-view.xsl for Mirage 1 or 2, so presumably is a local customisation at your end. I was talking about a different piece of functionality -- server-side code that sends a custom "hey someone from this IP address just downloaded this file" message to Google Analytics whenever a bitstream is downloaded. I can't actually seem to find a description of this in the DSpace docs, but there is some initial discussion in Jira: https://jira.duraspace.org/browse/DS-2088 Since this functionality is server-side, it doesn't rely on the visitor hitting the item page (nor on the visitor having JavaScript enabled / not blocking GA). cheers, Andrea Thanks, susan — Susan Borda Digital Technologies Development Librarian Montana State University Library 406-994-1873 From: Andrea Schweer <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Date: Tuesday, November 17, 2015 at 1:32 PM To: Susan Borda <<mailto:[email protected]>[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>, "[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>" <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Subject: Re: [dspace-community] File Visits = downloads? Hi Susan, I'd expect even more discrepancies between the DSpace usage stats and Google Analytics for the page views, for several reasons: * differences in bot filtering as mentioned for the bitstream downloads * if I remember correctly then the page view numbers in the DSpace usage stats refer only to _item_ page views, not other pages - Google Analytics counts all pages * Google Analytics will only count users with JavaScript + GA enabled while DSpace doesn't need these two to be switched on The first point on the list probably still makes the biggest difference (plus plenty of bots won't trigger the GA JavaScript). If I read your comment correctly and your download tracking is done client-side (ie customised, not the out-of-the-box DSpace functionality to push events to Google Analytics server-side) then your GA tracking also won't include any downloads that bypass the item page (such as someone clicking directly on a PDF link in a search engine listing). cheers, Andrea On 18/11/15 09:15, Borda, Susan wrote: Hi Andrea- I am seeing major discrepancies in the Page Views unfortunately we we had a gap in download tracking via Google Analytics (the code was not reapplied when we migrated from Mirage 1 to Mirage 2) so we don’t have anything to compare there. Thanks, s — Susan Borda Digital Technologies Development Librarian Montana State University Library 406-994-1873 From: <<mailto:[email protected]>[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> on behalf of Andrea Schweer <<mailto:[email protected]>[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Date: Tuesday, November 17, 2015 at 12:55 PM To: Susan Borda <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>, "[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>" <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Subject: Re: [dspace-community] File Visits = downloads? Hi Susan, On 18/11/15 08:47, Borda, Susan wrote: Hi All- In "View Usage Statistics" in Dspace (5.4 XMLUI) do “File Visits” == file downloads? Yes. Also, should these align with “google-stats” if that is set up for downloads? No, I wouldn't expect the numbers to be the same. The DSpace usage statistics and Google Analytics each do their own filtering of what they consider to be "bots" -- search engine crawlers and the like. I'd generally expect Google Analytics to be stricter with the filtering, so the GA numbers would likely be lower. Are you seeing major discrepancies between the two figures? cheers, Andrea -- Dr Andrea Schweer IRR Technical Specialist, ITS Information Systems The University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand +64-7-837 9120 -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "DSpace Community" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>. To post to this group, send email to <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/dspace-community. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- Dr Andrea Schweer IRR Technical Specialist, ITS Information Systems The University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand +64-7-837 9120 -- Dr Andrea Schweer IRR Technical Specialist, ITS Information Systems The University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand +64-7-837 9120 -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "DSpace Community" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/dspace-community. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
