We’re hugely excited to announce that we’re partnering with PSI to launch a new, unified usage analytics solution branded Touchstone.

There’s a lot to unpack in that short sentence, so here we go …

Why launch a new usage analytics service?

We’ve been posting and presenting for a while about the challenges that open access (OA) publishers face in demonstrating the impact (value) of making content open. This is critical to support OA publishing models, because funders need to see that their investment is delivering greater access to research. But traditional usage metrics (“600 downloads last month”) fail to communicate whether open content reached new audiences or critical communities of interest to funders.

What is Touchstone?

Touchstone powers open and paywalled publishing models by providing publishers with unique, granular insights into their audiences and demonstrating the value of their content. Whether your interest is understanding open access audiences or those denied access to paywalled content. Touchstone offers the insights you need.

Designed for automation and customisation at scale, Touchstone supports a wide variety of interactive and automated workflows, including embeddable reports, API interrogation, and bulk exports.

Why partner with PSI?

Touchstone relies on two key ingredients for success. One of those is the valuable organisational data that enables us to identify a user’s organisational affiliation, and use enriched metadata to power granular audience insights. Through their development of The IP Registry and related databases, PSI Metrics delivers unique intelligence. We’ve also been working with them for many years and respect their skills and experience.

The other is a flexible and scalable analytics platform that can generate real-time insights. We’ve got that one covered 🙂.

Why call it Touchstone?

In ancient times, a touchstone was a tablet of fine-grained stone used to test the purity of precious metals. More recently, it’s become a metaphor for any measure by which the validity or merit of a concept can be tested. This resonated with us because OA publishers need to measure the value of their audience. And our analytics provide the same granular richness that the original stone tablets did.

Contact us if you’d like to learn more about your audience.