We seem to be experiencing delays in the LibCal Appointments public booking slots refreshing. If subject librarians etc. are adding/changing availability the slots shown in their “Make an appointment” buttons interface are not being updated. It’s also possible that new Outlook appointments are not syncing through either. I’ve emailed Springshare but, as they are out of office hours, you may want to check some of your appointment slots. If you now have an outlook appointment in a slot that is still showing as available for booking you can delete the slot manually by going into the Availability tab in appointments and clicking on the slow in the calendar to the right to bring up the delete form.
NB: the slots will likely show ok in the appointments dashboard/availability calendars – it is just the public-facing appointment buttons that seem to be affected.
We think this is because we are having problems with our WoltersKluwer login via OpenAthens and OVID redirects to that as part of its article resolving process and have logged a ticket with OpenAthens support to look into the issue. In the meantime, the DOI links in the preview section of Multisearch search result display seem to work ok (for at least some of the articles) as they point directly to the journal site rather than OVID’s resolver. If you get any report from users you can direct them to those links instead.
Today marks the last day of our official OpenAthens go live period. We have updated a lot of links to point to OpenAthens (over 200,000 catalogue records), Multisearch/360link linking logic has changed, and we have updated the LibGuides database assets. We are still working on around 30,000 older catalogue record links as the process to convert them hasn’t proved as seamless as we’d hoped, mainly due to the age of some of the records and the opportunity to do some tidy up as we go.
We are also working on getting database permalink formats updated where required – if you spot any that still add ezproxy to the link let us know.
Most current students and staff should now be set up to get through the Microsoft sign in for OpenAthens. We have identified a problem with visitors or staff that don’t have UC email addresses not being able to log in and are currently working on that with IT. Please continue to refer any issues with OpenAthens Microsoft sign in to Library Digital Services.
Link-maker
The new linkmaker – should be used from now on to create stable off-campus-available links to library e-resources. The LEARN ezproxy links page has been updated by FTL – it no longer contains the linkmaker itself, it now links out to it instead (we requested this to avoid us having to duplicate the code and information), so you may want to provide academics you are working with the direct link and ask them to bookmark it.
We will remove the content of the old intranet linkmaker page soon and replace it with directions to the new linkmaker, if you have this page bookmarked please replace with the new linkmaker.
Privacy/Data Release and Personal Account Creation Screens
Since OpenAthens provides the opportunity for some publishers to provide users with personal accounts (to make use of features like saved searches, alerts etc.), users will see some personal data use/release screens (usually only the first time they access a publisher’s site) about the place now. These are usually quite straightforward and readable. We are releasing only minimal personal data via OpenAthens – most vendors will only get an anonymized token allowing them to log users into their own account, some others (mostly for personal vendor accounts users create) require UC email address and first and last names.
Some examples of ones I’ve come across below.
note the cheeky reverse psychology employed RE receiving marketing
We still have a number of small tasks to get through to complete the conversion to OpenAthens over the next couple of months e.g. updating the proxy information in Endnote find full text and EndnoteClick, more Libguides updates (links in rich text and url assets), and the biggie – updating existing links in LEARN.
***update 4pm – MARC load is complete – change freeze is over :)***
Mōrena koutou
We are about to re-load 201,000 MARC monograph records (with shiny new OpenAthens links) into Horizon. While this is happening it’s best not to edit any monograph MARC records, in particular serials solutions records (035 tag like (WaSeSS)). This will mainly affect LAC staff who’ve been informed via Teams but also anyone else with cataloguing/MARC edit privileges in Horizon. This affects bib records only, it is fine to edit item records.
Serials records are also ok to edit as we loaded the much smaller number of these yesterday afternoon.
Will post a comment when the load is complete and freeze is lifted,
As a consequence of switching most resources to
OpenAthens last week and not having updated our catalogue links yet (that will be done today but it will take Multisearch up to a week to catch up), some full text links from Multisearch (the ones using our catalogue record links) were failing to get through ezproxy when off-campus users used the “Off Campus? Log in to access full text and more content” top right banner to sign in first.
We were unable to fix this so have temporarily turned the off campus login option in Multisearch and will leave it turned off at least until it has picked up the changes to library catalogue links.
The main consequence of disabling this option is off-campus users will not see the full range of search results in Multisearch. Some abstract & indexing databases (e.g. ProQuest theses/dissertations), Scopus (citation counts that normally display for articles indexed by Scopus) and Informit, restrict access to citations/results to users on campus IP range or logged in to ezproxy or OpenAthens.
Off campus users may also have to navigate the sign in via institution options on platforms like ProQuest, Gale and EBSCOhost when they click on a full text link (in testing we only came across one example of this and it was quite straightforward to sign in to ProQuest).
If you are off campus and spot anything really annoying or not functioning (or have users report things on AskLIVE) please let Library Digital Services know and we’ll see if we can mitigate.
We were unable to solve the issue with 360 link resolver not loading publisher content via OpenAthens alongside the helper sidebar so we have turned the sidebar functionality off. This means instead of trying to load the publisher’s article detail page alongside a sidebar, if 360link thinks we have full-text access to an article it will just redirect users to the publisher’s site.
We have tested some articles ( via search for Global Warming on Google Scholar) that were failing to load yesterday and all are now loading happy Science, Elsevier, JSTOR, PNAS article pages.
Not having the sidebar means users lose the features it provided e.g.
citation details
fulltext options dropdown menu (allowing switch to different provider if the one chosen by 360link doesn’t work)
“report a problem” link
The only feedback we have around people actually using these features is the report a problem option (which we receive reports from), we only get very few of these unless there is a problem with a bigger vendor, so hopefully it won’t be missed too much.
We will continue to explore avenues to get OpenAthens working with the sidebar but expectations are pessimistic at present.
We received our MARC update load from Serials Solutions containing all the changed links for OpenAthens. 264,617 records for us to process next week!
360link (our link resolver) has started applying the OpenAthens links – so you will see Google Scholar full text links and some Multisearch full text links now direct users to sign in via OpenAthens. This hasn’t gone entirely smoothly and we are investigating options for the following 2 issues:
EBSCOhost database article links – users are getting an authentication error 103 screen.
We have traced this to a mistake I made in some of the set up and are now correcting the settings – however, the fix will likely not kick in until tomorrow as it relies on a daily profile refresh.
2) Browser errors in the 360 link article helper sidebar screen. We think OpenAthens is not going to be compatible with the sidebar (as many of our resources are not these days) so we are looking at options for removing this. Using the “open content in new tab” links at the bottom of the side bar get around these errors in the meantime.
3) We have also seen the first few students unable to log in to OpenAthens. IT’s IAM team are still working on adding missing students – they are processing these in batches and will likely need until the end of the week to finish. We will report any users that report problems logging in through to get them added ahead of schedule.
Catalogue links have not yet been updated so these are an alternative for people having trouble logging in to OpenAthens.
We are (finally?) going to go live with OpenAthens as a replacement to ezproxy over the mid-semester break (April 11 – 29th). Apologies for the long post that follows – maybe save as some holiday reading (Easter chocolate will make it better)?
What will we actually be doing to go-live?
Basically, we will be updating all the library links to electronic resources we can find (there are a lot) and re-configuring apps like Multisearch and 360link (full text link resolver used by Multisearch and other abstract and indexing sites like Google Scholar, Scopus, CAS etc.) to direct users to OpenAthens rather than ezproxy.
The work will start with Intota (our ERM system that drives Multisearch, and 360 link) on Monday 11th. It’ll take time for changes to flow through to Multisearch etc. so probably won’t see much change that week.
The next step will be updating the Horizon/library catalogue links – we anticipate these will be done in the second week of the break 20-22th April. LibGuides database assets will also be updated to use the new proxy prefix. This should mean most of the links about the library ecosystem will be updated by the end of the mid-semester break and we may even get in a week of troubleshooting and tweaks.
We’ll also be releasing a new link-maker for academics (and library staff) to be able to make stable links for LEARN etc. by end of the break. We’ve opted not to try and tackle the vast quantity (and variable quality) of pre-existing links in LEARN just yet but will get these done before the start of semester 2. Ezproxied links in LEARN and bookmarked by users will continue to work up until we switch off Ezproxy (current subscription runs out end June). This gives us some breathing space to hunt down any stray links/connections we’ve not thought of yet.
What you/users will notice
The main difference people will encounter is the screen they now get directed to, to sign in for e-resource access. Instead of the old faithful “Remote Access Login” you’ll see a Microsoft sign in (same as you get for Tū ki te tahi, Outlook etc.). This requires UC email address instead of username. For students that is the username@uclive.ac.nz format. For staff, MFA may be required at times (students don’t yet have to use MFA but this is likely to come very soon).
Behind the sign-in scenes there are 2 access groups (one staff and one student) that control access to OpenAthens. Access is limited to current-ish staff and students. If users are not in an access group they will get an error message after entering their credentials – please report those cases to Library Digital Services and we’ll investigate eligibility and refer to IT for fixing.
Shiny New Stuff
OpenAthens makes it possible to sign in from vendor/publisher websites directly when users are searching outside of the Library ecosystem. There are “Sign in with your institution” and “OpenAthens sign in” options dotted about behind “sign in” buttons on the likes of Elsevier, Wiley, Sage, Taylor&Francis, Springer, EBSCOhost etc. that users can utilise. This functionality has actually been live for a while now and has been used a lot without any publicity from us at all.
so many sign in options
How are we communicating all this?
Posts will go out on Tū ki te tahi and Tūpono to alert our users to the change. ITS/Digital Services staff will be informed via the Change Advisory Board process and Teams.
Problems/Troubleshooting?
Aside from the “I can’t login” problems mentioned above we anticipate there may be a few issues with resource/full text links. We have done a fair bit of testing throughout the implementation but won’t have tried every variation each publisher/vendor has for resource links. Multisearch may also throw up a few curveballs as this is something we have to test live.
If you do notice anything that doesn’t quite work (e.g. error messages or pages not loading correctly) please report those to Library Digital Services.
As part of our Open Athens set up we will be testing Open Athens login to OCLC (so Worldcat, Worldshare ILL and the Tipasa patron interloans account portal) soon.
Once OCLC has set us up (possibly later today) when people login to OCLC/interloans account they will be presented with a sign in options screen instead of progressing directly to the current UC ADFS sign in page.
The first option will take them to the UC ADFS sign in page and that is what people should use to access their account.
The second option will be the new Open Athens one and this is labelled “Test only – DO NOT USE”
Hopefully this will be pretty clear to users but wanted to give you a heads up. The screen will only be in place temporarily until we’ve finished testing .
LAC staff using OCLC regularly – you may need to clear browser cache/cookies when the change comes through.
Future Teaching and Learning have finished updating their LEARN help for staff information – this is now in a book format and we have a Library Resources “book” under AKO | LEARN Resources.
FTL have also added a link to the page from the URL book under AKO | LEARN Resources. So hopefully lecturers adding a URL to one of our resources will see it.
