OpenURL is a JISC-sponsored service (http://www.jisc.ac.uk/), and is administered jointly by UKOLN (http://ukoln.ac.uk) and EDINA (http://edina.ac.uk/).
To provide the best value for money, your OpenURL resolver should be used by as many staff and students as possible. One of the characteristics of OpenURL resolvers is that they are not generally intended to be the first port of call for the end user; the user accesses the resolver via a referring service, such as an abstracting and indexing database. You are dependent on the providers of these services to enable your users to get access to your resolver.
The OpenURL Router aims to simplify the provision of OpenURL links from referring services to resolvers. The goal is that each resolver set up in the UK HE and FE community needs to be registered only once, at the Router, and that it should then be accessible from every potential referring service. The Router is funded by JISC (http://www.jisc.ac.uk) and is free of charge to the user community
A JISC sponsored resource, such as a abstracting and indexing service, faces overheads in providing OpenURL links. A mechanism must be developed for the user interface so that whenever a user logs in, the system can check for an OpenURL resolver at their institution, and then provide appropriate links. This system must then be populated with information concerning all OpenURL resolvers set up in the UK HE and FE community; this task is likely to fall to the resolver administrators, who will have to repeat the task for all such services to which their institution subscribes.
The OpenURL Router can eliminate this problem. Services can provide OpenURL links to openurl.ac.uk for all users. Resolver administrators register their resolvers once at openurl.ac.uk. The Router will redirect the request to the appropriate resolver in each case.
A free access service, such as a subject portal, faces greater problems in providing OpenURL links. Services that require an UK federation login or offer IP checked access have a mechanism already in place that identifies each users' institution, but free access services have no equivalent. Without any means of identifying the users' institutions, it is impossible to provide OpenURL links to the correct resolver.
The OpenURL Router can solve this problem. Services can provide OpenURL links to openurl.ac.uk for all users, and the Router will identify the users' institution and then redirect the request to the appropriate resolver. This mechanism works by IP address checking when the user is on campus. When not on campus, a WAYF is used (the user selects their institution from a list); if the user has previously made a selection in the WAYF, the link is seamless. Of course, cookies set by the WAYF ensure that the user is never required to perform more than one WAYF selection per session, however many OpenURL links they click on.
This provides OpenURL linkage in situations where it would not be possible without the OpenURL Router.
Large commercial service providers are already likely to offer customers the option to configure OpenURL links to their own resolvers. We will be contacting these service providers with the suggestion that openurl.ac.uk can be used for their UK HE and FE customers, at least as a default option.
Even if a service provider chooses not to use openurl.ac.uk for OpenURL links, individual customer can still configure their own links with openurl.ac.uk as the base URL. This would be transparent to the users, but would mean that the "real" resolver details would be registered only once at openurl.ac.uk: then any future changes to the resolver would only require a single update.
The JISC is making a considerable investment in the Information Environment (IE) (http://www.jisc.ac.uk/ie/). Along with other infrastructure components, the OpenURL Router will enhance the efficiency and value for money of other services within the IE. By registering your resolver at openurl.ac.uk you are contributing to the IE and enhancing the quality of services available to the HE and FE community.
The Router links users to the correct resolver by identifying their institution, which can be done in several ways:
We also intend to implement identification mechanisms for any other method of authentication/authorisation that comes into use within the JISC IE.
If a user's institution can be identified, but that institution does not have a resolver registered at openurl.ac.uk, then the user is given a choice of open access resolvers. These currently include GetCopy at EDINA (http://edina.ac.uk/getcopy).
The OpenURL Router enables service providers to discover that you have a resolver, but it does not confer any access rights. Most OpenURL Resolvers do not have acess restrictions, but if you choose to implement access control then this will be unaffected by the Router.
The button used for OpenURL links is important. This gives a visual clue for your users that the web page they are viewing contains link(s) to your OpenURL resolver.
The Router allows you to register a button image. This can be automatically included by service providers via the Router, in the same way that their OpenURLs automatically link to your resolver. You can also register "alt" text to be used with the image, to ensure that users of non-visual browsers are also given consistently recognisable links to your resolver.
Please note that though we strongly recommend to service providers that they use the button image and alt text that you provide, we are not in a position to enforce this.
You can register your resolver at http://openurl.ac.uk/config. When you submit the configuration details to openurl.ac.uk, they will be checked and entered into the database.
Any UK institution involved in tertiary education or research can register a resolver. An "institution" in this context refers to a group of users who share the use of an OpenURL Resolver, and can be identified by UK federation scope and/or a shared IP address or range. In some circumstances this could be a subset of a University or research body, and it does not need to correspond to a UK federation "scope".
* or missing value matches a whole subnet:It is only necessary for you to set up links via the OpenURL Router to cater for services that do not use the Router automatically or as their default setting. At the present time this could represent most of your services. Configuring links to use the Router is worthwhile, because if you change your resolver URL in the future (software updates, firewall/proxy server changes, domain name changes, switching port numbers, etc.) you will then only have to alter the configuration at the OpenURL Router, with immediate effect for all your services.
Use this as the base URL for links
http://openurl.ac.uk/ukfed:SCOPE
In place of SCOPE use your UK federation scope (the string resembling a domain that you used when you registered your resolver; if you registered more than one UK federation scope, you can use any one of them here).
Where a service allows you to specify a button/link image, use this
http://openurl.ac.uk/button/ukfed:SCOPE
In place of SCOPE use your UK federation scope (the string resembling a domain that you used when you registered your resolver; if you registered more than one UK federation scope, you can use any one of them here).
Old links using the 'athens' parameter in place of the 'scope' parameter above will continue to work, so no changes to existing links made in this manner will be necessary.
OpenURL is a JISC-sponsored service (http://www.jisc.ac.uk/), and is administered jointly by UKOLN (http://ukoln.ac.uk) and EDINA (http://edina.ac.uk/).