11.1 Platform as a Namespace

Content providers and other organizations providing COUNTER reports wishing to create custom reports or introduce custom elements or element-values can do so by using their platform identifier (platform ID) as a namespace. For example, if EBSCO wanted to create a customized version of the “Journal Requests (Excluding OA_Gold)” Standard View for their link resolver product that includes a new Metric_Type for counting link-outs, they could do this by naming the report “ebscohost:TR_J1” and creating a new Metric_Type of “ebscohost:Total_Linkouts”.

The namespace MUST only contain ASCII characters (a-z, A-Z, 0-9). No spaces or punctuation is allowed.

COUNTER will assign the platform ID when adding the platform to their Registry of Compliance (content providers can suggest a value to be used for their platform ID). Other organizations providing COUNTER reports, such as consortia or ERM providers, may contact COUNTER to register a namespace if they desire to create extensions and customizations. COUNTER will maintain a list of approved namespaces.