Access to Oxford University Press articles

Access to Oxford University Press articles has been problematic since OUP’s move of its journal content to a new platform (Silverchair Information Systems).  The impact on Cambridge has been very severe indeed and alternative means of access have been used as a result of the inaccessibility of both subscription and OA articles on the OUP platform.  There are a number of separate issues that are causing the failure of access and these are summarized here with as much of an indication as we have about their progress to a solution.

Missing content

Content is missing from some journals.  OUP has migrated its journals to its new platform in stages.  This migration has been onoing over the second half of 2016 especially and should have been completed by now.  Very regrettably some articles and some issues and some years of some journals have yet to be migrated.  OUP is addressing this problem urgently.  If you find any missing content there is the option to email us and we will request its delivery to us as a priority and we will forward it onto you.  (email: ejournals@lib.cam.ac.uk).

Shibboleth authentication

Shibboleth access to OUP journals is not working.  After Shibboleth (Raven) authentication you are returned to the article paywall page.  We have been doing all we can with OUP to resolve this problem as soon as possible.  This has involved a consistent and prolonged correspondence with OUP technical support staff since the issue was first reported and Citrix conference calls.  Testing to resolve the issue is continuing and staff both at OUP and here are working on this with all urgency.

Article linking via iDiscover

Linking directly from the article record in iDiscover to the article full text on the OUP site is failing in many instances.  This problem is caused essentially by a delay in the inclusion of the current article level metadata by the company providing Cambridge with the iDiscover product. The redirect that should work from the former article link to the new article link is not working at the article level and is instead returning the user to the journal home page.  This is obviously extremely frustrating and seriously impedes access.  The resolution of the problem is in liaison between OUP and Ex Libris to ensure the article level metadata is current.  This liaison is happening now with further representation by us to Ex Libris.

Display of institutional and individual names

Institutional details and personal names of members of the University were displaying in a random way on the OUP platform when the site was accessed off campus.  This is a less serious issue in terms of access, but has now been resolved which it was important to do with respect to the details and individuals involved.

 

In summary we are continuing to work with OUP to resolve these issues as soon as possible as we appreciate their very serious impact.  Emails to the staff@lib and lib-list@lists have been sent earlier and it was hoped the issues were of short duration and could be resolved quickly.  This has proved not to be the case.  We will push more information out to the lists and via this blog as it changes.

Please note that the ejournals@cambridge A_Z and the ejournals@cambridge article search are both still working for journal title and article searching respectively on and off campus as the linking is done by DOI and via EZproxy.