Category: RefWorks

AUTHENTICATED ACCESS TO the legacy version of RefWorks (v2) is no longer available to staff and students at Nottingham Trent University, following the removal of NTU from the drop-down list of Shibboleth sites on the legacy platform.

This means that LLR is now only supporting the current (and far superior) version of RefWorks (v3).

This withdrawal process has taken far longer than intended due to delays by ProQuest in completing the necessary technical work.

Since the launch of RefWorks v3, LLR had been supporting both the new and the legacy versions, to allow sufficient time for users of the legacy version to complete existing research activities without needing to migrate mid-project.

Library support for both versions had been in place for several years. Throughout that time new staff and students had been encouraged by the library to create accounts in RefWorks v3, and the LTT has provided training exclusively for the much-improved new version.

However, a minority of existing v2 users had continued to regularly log in to the legacy version of RefWorks, and a small number of new v2 accounts had been created.

The library has contacted all v2 RefWorks users that have been active on the platform in the past twelve months, offering support and guidance about how to migrate to RefWorks v3. Many have completed the migration to the new platform following this advice.

If any staff member or student contacts the library to report that they need access to references held in their legacy RefWorks account, LLR can – even now – assist them with the migration process. In any such cases, a Dynamics ticket should be raised for the attention of the ATS team, with details of the individual concerned.

ProQuest will decommission the legacy version of RefWorks entirely on 30 June 2023.

ACCESS TO THE superceded, legacy version of RefWorks (version 2) will cease to be available for staff and students at Nottingham Trent University from the end of August 2022. From September, the library will only be supporting the current version of RefWorks (version 3).

Since the launch of RefWorks version 3, LLR has been supporting both the new and the legacy versions to allow sufficient time for users of the legacy version to complete existing research activities without needing to migrate mid-project.

Library support for both versions has now been in place for several years. Throughout that time new staff and students have been encouraged by the library to create accounts in RefWorks version 3, and the LTT has provided training exclusively for the much-improved new version.

However, a minority of existing v2 users have continued to regularly log in to the legacy version of RefWorks, and a small number of new v2 accounts have been created.

The library has contacted all v2 RefWorks users that have been active on the platform in the past twelve months, offering support and guidance about how to migrate to RefWorks v3. A second mailout to all active v2 users has recently been completed, and library teams have made additional contact with the most active v2 users.

An announcement has also been added to the v2 RefWorks user interface (see illustration below).

The ability to create new accounts in RefWorks v2 has now been suspended ahead of the withdrawal of access.

The withdrawal of access to RefWorks v2 will be effected by the removal of Single Sign-on authentication to the platform.

After the withdrawal of access to v2, the library will be able (for a limited period of time) to extract references from individual staff and student accounts who have not yet migrated to RefWorks v3 and who continue to need access to that material.