The document discusses the challenges users face when accessing online resources through libraries and potential solutions. It notes that users often give up if asked to sign in and may go to free or pirate sites instead. The main challenges are organization discovery, where users must select their institution to sign in, and lack of deep linking, where users are not taken directly to the content. Solutions proposed include improving terminology, discovery experiences with fewer clicks, providing deep linking through federated access management, collaborating with designers, co-designing with users, and training support teams on single sign-on.

1. OpenAthens is a Jisc enterprise
Challenges in accessing
e-resources
September 2019
Adam Snook

2. 2
Introduction

3. 3
Who am I?

4. 4
What I aim to cover:
The challenges users face in accessing content
online
Some of the solutions you can put in place to
prevent them giving up and going to free or pirate
sites.

5. 5
Library resources
• Organisations subscribe to online resources,
applications and services
• Use of electronic services has grown
exponentially (many organisations are now
100% electronic)
• Individuals navigate to electronic services
• Need to identify themselves as subscribers
• Both on and off-site
5

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Talking to our users

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They navigate to these services through:
• Search engines
• Bookmarks / direct
• Reading lists
• Library portals
• Discovery services
• Email
• Social media
• Etc.
7

8. “If I’m asked to sign-in,
I don’t read the article.”

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Organisation discovery
(the sign-in problem)

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Do I have access?

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That isn’t where I wanted to go!
(lack of deep-linking)

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How libraries try to improve
the user experience

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Linking
• Publishers automatically do IP recognition…
• But don’t automatically check for
federated/SAML or Shibboleth-like
authentication
• User typically has to navigate WAYF (ie. choose their
organisation from a list)
• Library organisations use link resolvers and
provide WAYFless links on library portals
25

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WAYFless linking & deep-linking
• Federated sign-in URLs are different from generic URLs (IP)
• All different - each publisher has its own unique structure
• http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/01406736
• https://auth.elsevier.com/ShibAuth/institutionLogin?entityID=https
%3A%2F%2Fidp.eduserv.org.uk%2Fopenathens&appReturnURL
=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sciencedirect.com%2Fscience%2Fjourna
l%2F01406736
• http://ajs.sagepub.com
• http://openathens.highwire.org/initiate-
login?returnURL=http%3A%2F%2Fajs.sagepub.com%2F
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Summary

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Federated Access Management can
be the key
• Discovery is central to improving the user journey
• Much of the technology is already in place, it just needs greater
attention
• IP recognition should only ever be treated as a temporary solution
or last-resort
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Six quick wins for improving the
user experience
1. Improve terminology & language
Be consistent, accurate, relevant & non-technical
2. Improve the organisation discovery experience
Fewer clicks, less technical & busy
3. Provide deep-linking via federated access
Update your customers when you make changes to your links
4. Talk to your web designers and UX teams
5. Co-design your platforms with real users
6. Empower your support teams to understand federated SSO
29

30. Any questions?
30

31. Thank you
OpenAthens is a Jisc enterpriseSeptember 2019
Adam Snook
adam.snook@openathens.net