Directorate of Learning Resources

Accessing electronic journals from off-campus

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

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.

www.brookes.ac.uk/library

August 2008

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.

When you get to the Electronic Library page, before you go in to any resources, log in to Athens.

In the login boxes, put your Brookes student 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.

We want to look for the Journal of Research in International 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.

•Find the title you want in the A to Z list.

•There may be more than one supplier – choose one which is available off-campus and covers the year you want, and click on the supplier name (eg. “Sage Premier”)

Even though you’ve already logged in to Athens, you still need to click on the “Sign In” link to tell the website to check your Athens status.

If you skip this and try to go straight to the journal articles, you will either be refused access or asked to pay before you can access full text.

Sign In

DO click on the “Sign in via Athens” 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.

DON’T type anything into the “individual subscriber” username and password boxes – they won’t recognise your Athens account.

You can now see “Oxford Brookes University” in the top right hand corner, so you know your Athens login has been recognised. You should now have access to all the issues of this journal that the Library has subscribed to online.

Here’s another example, using a different journal supplier. This time, instead of finding the journal via the Library Catalogue, we’ll go straight in via Electronic Library. We’ve already logged in to Athens.

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

Type the journal title you want into the “Find” box and click “Search”.

Type the title of the journal you want into the “Find” box and click “Search”.

As before, choose a supplier which will give you the year you want. In this case the first supplier has a 1 year embargo (ie wouldn’t give you the most recent 12 months), so we’ll click on the second one, E-Journals from Ebsco.

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.

Before you get to the journal,you get taken to the supplier’s home page.

You can now see “Oxford Brookes University” in the top left hand corner, so you know your Athens login has been recognised. You should now have access to all the issues of this journal that the Library has subscribed to online.

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.

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, July 2008.