A unit is deducted from your Springer CoD balance when a user accesses the full-text view or downloads an article or chapter during a session. An article or chapter downloaded more than once during the same session will only be counted as a single charge. If a user downloads the same article or chapter in different sessions, then one unit will be deducted per session.
A new session starts when a user:
comes to SpringerLink for the first time
is inactive for more than 30 minutes and then resume their activity
closes or quits the browser and starts a new browsing session
uses a different browser
logs out or logs in with personal credentials
If a user selects the option to download an entire book a maximum of 7 units will be deducted from your balance. For a book with fewer than 7 chapters we will deduct the same number of units as there are chapters in the book.
We don’t automatically display the full text of articles and chapters for which a CoD unit would be used. Instead the user needs to actively choose to view the full text or download the PDF before we deduct a unit for the content.
The time zone used in the Springer CoD usage report is Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).