Accessing electronic journals from off- campus This causes lots of headaches, but dont despair,...

Accessing electronic journals from off-campus

This causes lots of headaches, but don’t despair, here’s how to do it!

(Please note – this presentation is about accessing specific journal titles you have already identified, not about finding journal articles on a topic – for that you need to use a database. For help with that, go to the Library’s Subject Help page for your subject and look at the Databases section.)

If you find this short presentation helpful, you could try splitting your screen into two windows (resize them so one sits alongside the other) and opening the presentation in one, and the Library Web

site in the other – then you can try out the steps as we go along.

Click the mouse or use your Down arrow to advance the presentation.

To access any of our electronic resources from off-campus, you always need to start by logging in to ATHENS, our username and password system.

Start from the Library home page, and click on Electronic Library.

To access any of our electronic resources from off-campus, you always need to start by logging in to Athens on the Library home page:

www.brookes.ac.uk/library

In the Athens login boxes, put your Brookes student or staff number in as “Username” and your portal password (your email/PIP password), then click “Login”.

• You should get confirmation that your Athens account has been recognised and you are logged in.

• If instead you are told “Your login has failed”, go back and double-check that you entered your username and password correctly.

• If your username and password were correctly entered and you still cannot log in, please email athens@brookes.ac.uk supplying your full name, staff/student number, date of birth and home address; staff will if necessary post a replacement password out to your home address (we cannot email or phone through passwords for security reasons)

• Once you are logged in, you can go to the electronic resource of your choice, either via Subject Help (if you need tips on relevant resources for your subject) or Electronic Library (if you already know the database, journal or e-book you want to access).

• You can also look electronic journals up on the Library Catalogue. We’ll look at some examples of accessing electronic journals from off-campus next, starting via the Catalogue.

We want to look for the International Journal of Research and Method in Education:

1. Type the journal title (not an article title or author) into the Title box on the Library Catalogue.

2. Select “Electronic & Printed Journals Catalogue” from the “Collection” drop-down.

3. Click “Search”.

We get two entries for this particular title, because it is available both in print and online. We want the electronic version, which says [electronic resource], so we click on “Access details”.

This takes us outside the Library Catalogue – we click “OK” to confirm.

• This will take you to the title you want in the A-to-Z list (or possibly to several matching titles, in which case select the right one)

• There may be more than one supplier – choose one which is available off-campus and covers the year you want (“Embargo” means you cannot get the most recent issues for the period indicated)

• Click on the supplier name (eg. “Education Research Complete”)

DON’T type anything in the “Customer Code”, “Username” or “Password” boxes – this won’t work. Those boxes are for non-Athens users (not you!)

DO click on the “Athens login” link. This tells the website to check for your Athens login. As long as you are already logged in to Athens, you will now be taken through to the journal.

When you are off-campus, before you get to the journal,you get taken to the supplier’s home page.

What happens if you do try putting your Athens username and password in the website’s login boxes?

If you enter them in these boxes (instead of clicking on the “ATHENS Login” link just above) then…

“Login failed, please try again”. You need to click on the “ATHENS Login” link just above the Username and Password boxes instead. Then you’ll get taken through.

Once you’re through to the journal, click on the year, volume and issue that you want.

Scroll through the contents page to the article you want and click on the Full Text link. Most e-journal articles are supplied as pdf files, so you’ll need a pdf reader like Adobe on your PC.

Depending how fast your Internet connection is and how big the article is, you may have to wait a few moments, but you should eventually get the full-text article on your screen. You can then (usually) print (use the Print icon within the window), save or sometimes email the article to yourself.

If you only want to know about online and not print journals, you can go straight from the Library home page to e-journals (making sure you’re logged in to Athens first); click on the E-journals Quick Link.

Assuming you know which journal title you want, go to “A-to-Z e-journals service”.

Type the title of the journal you want into the “Find” box (not an article title or a topic!) and click Search.

Now you need to click on a supplier name for this journal – in this case we’ll use Sage Premier. If you’re off-campus, then when you get through to the journal’s page…

… you need to Sign In. It may look as though you’ve reached the journal, but this page doesn’t say “Oxford Brookes University” anywhere on it – Sage hasn’t yet recognised who you are, and if you try to click through to a journal article straight away, you’ll probably be told you have to pay for it.

On the Sign In page, remember, just as on the Ebsco login page we looked at previously…

… don’t use the login boxes!

Instead, click on the Athens login link.

On the next screen, click Sign in via Athens…

Now finally you’re signed in as an Oxford Brookes user, so you should be able to access all the issues of this journal that we’ve subscribed to.

As you can see, to access e-journals off-campus there are quite a few steps to follow – so don’t hesitate to contact the Education Librarians for help if you need it!

This is the end of the presentation.Hazel Rothera, Senior Subject Librarian (Education), Oxford Brookes University, September 2010.