Q. Do I need to 'Enable Remote Access' before searching for eResources?

You don't actually need to 'Enable Remote Access' manually prior to using our resources - if you search a database from our database page, or One Search, or our catalogue and try to access a subscription resource you will be prompted to enable remote access automatically.

We leave the 'Enable remote access' option available because we spent a lot of time (up to 2010) telling everyone they had to use it before searching - then we implemented technologies and procedures that don't require that first step. But our repetition of it lingers for long time users (or people who learned about it word-of-mouth from a friend or colleague).

In actual fact 'Enabling Remote Access' manually can cause problems when accessing Open Access resources. To understand why we need to understand a little about the technology behind providing off campus access to resources restricted to on campus access.

We use EZproxy to provide off campus access. It acts on your behalf with publishers, relaying your requests to publisher web sites and returning the results to you. Because it is 'on campus' and you have logged into it with a JCU account the publishers are happy to provide access to JCU subscription resources.

For every resource the Library subscribes to we have to create a configuration file so that EZproxy knows how to work with the publisher's web site (they are all very different). Open Access can break because we don't subscribe and we may not have a configuration set up for every non-subscription resource (there are literally thousands). EZproxy will not act on your behalf for a web site that has not been 'configured'. It will give you message saying it doesn't have configuration for that resource and prompt you to contact us if you think it should. This is largely for security reasons (but also for practical maintenance problems and minimising request processing time).

But if you allow our systems (like Find It and One Search) to prompt you to enable access when it is actually required you avoid conflicts with Open Access publishers.