Description:
In this case we received a question from our client dr. Adam Zaremba (Modern Finance Journal), related to the inconsistency of article summary data (backend) with article statistical data (frontend), as in the picture below:
As in the 2 images above, there was a difference in the number of download/view file data statistics between the article summary and the article page.
Please note this issue was discovered in OJS version 3.3.0-15
What steps do we take?
To find the cause of this problem, we checked directly from the database side and also the OJS code.
1. As in the image below, this is submission data with related statistical data
2. From the results of database analysis, 3 galley PDF data records were found on the submission ID of the related article, as is known on the previous article page which only had 1 PDF file with assoc_id number 269 and had a total number of downloads of 75, this number is the same as in the article statistics results (frontend).
3. Then we also conducted a search based on other assoc_id data, namely ID 5 and 8, but the results we obtained did not find the submission_file_id data (image 5), so we think this data/pdf file has been deleted, but the previous statistical record data is still saved in the database as in Image 3.
4. So if we add up the total number of assoc_id records in the database, we will get the result: 113
And this number is in accordance with the statistical data on the OJS article summary (backend) page
5. However, this total number is not taken to be displayed on the article statistics page (frontend) data, this is because on the article page statistics (frontend) it takes data according to the assoc_id number it has so that the data displayed is 75
6. Not only that, the statistical data in the Usage Plugin also takes data according to its own assoc_id, without combining it with other assoc_id that have previously been deleted.
BUG found:
During the checking process we found that if we used a data filter based on “All Dates” then the results obtained were not the results of the entire record for all dates.
This is because if you look at the OJS coding found, you get a code like the image below:
The code takes the date based on the first published submission, in this case the first published submission is August 5 2023, while there is metric data before that date. So the data displayed is only from 05 August 2023 until the date when the statistics are accessed.
Conclusion:
Based on the results of the analysis that we have carried out, we found that the results of the statistical data in the Summary Article will be different from the statistical data of the article page (frontend) if the previously published article has made modifications/deletions to the galley data file, this is because the results in the Article summary will record all the galley data that has been created, different from the statistical data on the article page (frontend). This data is taken based on one assoc_id data.
