Category: EBSCOhost

Deep-linking to EBSCOhost full-text from off-campus – making it easier to login

Head of Discovery and Digital Futures

Off-campus links to all EBSCOhost databases in eSearch resolve directly to the NTU Single Sign-on page. However, linking to individual journal and article content within EBSCOhost from SFX has until now involved several extra steps to reach the Single Sign-on page – the first of which involved clicking on the Shibboleth link in the main interface screen.

Several service calls have indicated that these extra steps (and the terminology they involve) caused understandable customer confusion. Some additional technical configuration has therefore been activated for all full-text EBSCOhost databases (namely Academic Search Elite, Business Source Premier, Psycarticles and Regional Business News) which will instead resolve the off-campus SFX customer to a UK Access Management Federation WAYF (Where Are You From?) page, from which they can select ‘Nottingham Trent University’ and be resolved directly to the NTU Single-Sign-on page (all without any reference to ‘Shibboleth’).

It is hoped that this will make the login process more straightforward and intuitive. Feedback on this refinement is welcomed. Please note that any customer who Googles their way to EBSCOhost will still need to work through the steps outlined in the EBSCOhost Shibboleth walkthrough on the eServices Support wiki.

EBSCOhost databases – Shibboleth authentication working once again

Head of Discovery and Digital Futures

EBSCOhost have confirmed that the issue affecting their Shibboleth service has now been resolved. Off-campus access to all EBSCOhost databases is once again available by univeristy username and password.

The temporary off-campus access account details provided by EBSCOhost in the interim will shortly be disabled.

All of the service issue icons and customer notifications on EBSCOhost databases have been removed from eSearch.

If you continue to receive reports of any off-campus access difficulties affecting EBSCOhost databases, please report the details to eServices.

Problem affecting off-campus access to EBSCOhost databases

Head of Discovery and Digital Futures

Off-campus access to databases on the EBSCOhost platform is currently unavailable, due to problems affecting EBSCO’s Shibboleth authentication service. (On-campus access is unaffected).

When attempting to login to an EBSCOhost database from off-campus, the following error message displays:

Session Creation Failure

The inter-institutional access system was unable to successfully build a login session for you at [date and time]

To report this problem, please contact the site administrator at root@localhost. (Please note, there is no need to act on this instruction)

Please include the following message in any email:

Session creation failure at (https://shibboleth.ebscohost.com/Shibboleth.sso/SAML/POST)

Session Creation Error

The databases involved are:

  • Academic Search Elite
  • Business Source Premier
  • EconLit
  • International Bibliography of the Social Sciences
  • Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts
  • PsycARTICLES
  • PsycINFO
  • Regional Business News
  • SPORTDiscus
  • Textile Technology Index

This problem is affecting all UK universities using the Shibboleth framework for EBSCOhost authentication. A further update will be provided once we have received confirmation of a resolution from EBSCOhost.

Withdrawn resource: Violence and Abuse Abstracts

Head of Discovery and Digital Futures

Following the conclusion of LLR’s subscription to the Violence and Abuse Abstracts database, the resource has been removed from eSearch.

Withdrawn resource: Abstracts in Social Gerontology

Head of Discovery and Digital Futures

Following the conclusion of LLR’s subscription to the Abstracts in Social Gerontology database, the resource has been removed from eSearch.

Withdrawn resource: Research Starters – Business

Head of Discovery and Digital Futures

Following the conclusion of LLR’s extended trial subscription to the Research and Starters – Business database, the resource has been removed from eSearch.

Withdrawn resource: Research Starters – Education

Head of Discovery and Digital Futures

Following the withdrawal of the free-to-educational-access WGSN (Worth Global Style Network) service, the resource has been removed from eSearch.

Shibboleth – new resource migrations

Head of Discovery and Digital Futures

Following an intensive period of configuration work, Shibboleth authentication has been enabled for a large number of additional resources. Links and prompts in eSearch and SFX have been updated accordingly. A detailed guide to using Shibboleth on each of the affected resources has been added to the eServices support wiki.

The resources now requiring a university username and password (Shibboleth) for off-campus access are as follows:

  • CSA Illumina
    • ANTE: Abstracts in New Technologies and Engineering
    • ARTBiliographies Modern
    • ASSIA: Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts
    • Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals
    • BHI: British Humanities Index
    • Criminal Justice Abstracts
    • DAAI: Design and Applied Arts Index
    • ERIC
    • Polymer Library
    • Social Services Abstracts
    • Sociological Abstracts
  • EBSCOhost
    • Abstracts in Social Gerontology
    • Academic Search Elite
    • Business Source Premier
    • EconLit
    • International Bibliography of the Social Sciences
    • Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts
    • PsycARTICLES
    • PsycINFO
    • Regional Business News
    • Research Starters – Business
    • Research Starters – Education
    • SPORTDiscus
    • Textile Technology Index
    • Violence & Abuse Abstracts
  • LexisNexis Butterworths (On-campus and off-campus)
  • NexisUK
  • Westlaw

For all of these resources, Athens authenticated access will continue to be available for the time being, in parallel with Shibboleth-based authentication – although LLR will be promoting Shibboleth access (“Using your university username and password”) in preference to Athens.

New extended trial resource: Research Starters – Education

Head of Discovery and Digital Futures

Trial access to the EBSCOhost database ‘Research Starters – Education’ has been enabled in eSearch. Access to the service will be available until September 2009. As with other EBSCO databases, access is direct on-campus and by Athens username and password off-campus. The resource is described as follows:

Study and research guides designed specifically for advanced high school students, college students and selected graduate students. They consist of comprehensive, yet concise topic summary articles of about 3,000 words in length written by researchers, scholars and other subject matter experts.

EBSCOhost Enhanced Business Searching interface now accessible

Head of Discovery and Digital Futures

The issue reported yesterday with the links to the Enhanced Business Searching Interface in EBSCOhost has now been resolved. The link to the service is located under the listing for the Business Source Premier service and offers “an easy way to both browse and search for country economic data, company profiles, industry information and market research, and then use the results as limiters in a keyword search, if desired.”

New extended trial resource: Research Starters – Business

Head of Discovery and Digital Futures

Trial access to the EBSCOhost database ‘Research Starters – Business’ has been enabled in eSearch. Access to the service will be available until September 2009. As with other EBSCO databases, access is direct on-campus and by Athens username and password off-campus. The resource is described as follows:

Study and research guides designed to be starting points for students. These consist of comprehensive, yet concise topic summary articles of about 3,000 words in length written by researchers, scholars and other subject matter experts, providing topic overviews, definitions of relevant terms and concepts, detailed bibliographies, and full-text links where available.

EBSCOhost linking issues

Head of Discovery and Digital Futures

Two separate issues have arisen involving links to databases in the EBSCOhost interface. The first of these is that clicking on links in eSearch to services such as ‘Business Source Premier’, ‘Textile Technology Index or ‘Academic Search Elite’ resolved to an interim ‘Select New Service’ web page (see illustration below). Links in eSearch have now been amended to by-pass this additional screen for all EBSCOhost databases that LLR subscribes to.

EBSCO Select New Service screen

The second issue is that the EBSCO interface link under Business Source Premier to the Enhanced Business Searching Interface (see illustration below) returns an error page. If this error page is accessed, the current EBSCOhost session will terminate, and it will be necessary to close the browser, return to eSearch and click on the database link for a second time to launch a fresh EBSCOhost session. eServices is working with EBSCOhost’s technical team to resolve this issue.

EBSCOhost link to Enhanced Business Searching Interface