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OPAL Updates and Tips

OPAL Update December 22, 2020

by Heidi Beke-Harrigan on 2021-01-05T18:07:00-05:00 in Authentication, Communities of Interest (COIs), EBC, EBSCO, Gale, OhioLINK, Safari, Statistics and Reports | 0 Comments

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Prepare for ACRL/IPEDS Reporting

The OhioNET Support elves have been busily gathering data for the spreadsheets and detailed data sheets we send out to OPAL institutions annually. As you may have noticed from the information on the OhioLINK Ostaff pages, the availability of consortial usage statistics is dwindling as vendor platforms switch to individual, institutional log-ins. This limits the usage data we have access to. Please note that you will need to pull down usage stats for your institution from the vendors listed below and add those figures to the detail sheets we will send you in January.

E-book Usage/Circulation:

- Cambridge (OhioLINK)
- Oxford (OhioLINK)
- Wiley (OhioLINK)
- Proquest EBC (OhioLINK and local)
- Any other individually subscribed collections

When available use COUNTER5 TR_B1 Book Requests (Excluding OA Gold) and report unique title requests.

E-Journal Usage/Circulation:
- Proquest (OhioLINK and local)
- Association of Computing Machinery, ACM (OhioLINK)
- American Psychological Association, APA (OhioLINK)
- American Chemical Society, ACS (OhioLINK)
- Cambridge (OhioLINK)
- Elsevier (OhioLINK)
- Muse (OhioLINK)
- The Optical Society, OSA (OhioLINK)
- Oxford (OhioLINK)
- RSC (OhioLINK)
- Sage (OhioLINK)
- Wiley (OhioLINK)
- Any other individually subscribed titles or packages such as Proquest  Nursing, Ovid etc.

When available use COUNTER5 TR_J1 Journal Requests (Excluding OA Gold) and report unique item requests.

If you subscribe to e-media and have access to reports use IR_M1: Multimedia item requests and retrieve total item requests to be added into your total count for digital/electronic circulation.

A significant reporting change also occurred this year - IPEDS includes e-serial usage in section 60(B) for total digital/electronic circulation, while ACRL specifically keeps e-books and e-media totals separate from e-serials. This will be reflected in the formatting of your detail sheets.


New OhioLINK Electronic Book Center Launch

We have already made the necessary changes to the EZproxy stanza for the new Electronic Book Center (EBC). Please remember to do the following in EBSCO Holdings Management before January 2, 2021 paying close attention to the titles since they are similar.

  • • Enable the new platform package, Electronic Book Center (OhioLINK) by selecting the package - the button will turn green.
  • • Remove the legacy package, OhioLINK Electronic Book Center: EBC by deselecting it.

If you have any questions, please contact opalhelp@ohionet.org. There will be a brief outage of the OhioLINK EBC during the transition to the new site on December 30th.


End of Adobe Flash Impacts OhioLINK Resources

With the final version of Adobe Flash released this month, Adobe announced that Flash will be disabled on January 12, 2021. Users will see a pop up box reminding them to un-install Flash while January browser updates (Firefox, Chrome, and Microsoft Edge) will also completely remove Flash. These changes will affect some OhioLINK resources:

  • • The Music Center has been upgraded to a non-Flash media player and will not be affected.
  • • MARC records have already been removed from the OPAL catalog for affected Digital Resource Commons (DRC) collections. Follow previous OhioLINK and OPAL Update instructions regarding actions you need to take to update your local database lists and EBSCOhost, EDS and Holdings Management settings by the end of 2020. OhioLINK maintains an information page about the DRC content that also includes alternative access options to the Sanborn Maps.
  • • Member-contributed content will remain on the platform but require software that can be used to view file formats (such as JPEG2000, MPEG-4 and MPEG) without using Flash in the browser. The DRC FAQ page (scroll to bottom) provides some applications to consider.

Please contact opalhelp@ohionet.org if you have any questions about the DRC related changes in EBSCO EDS or Holdings Management.


EBSCO Launches Find My Organization Feature

Find My Organization provides end users access to library subscribed resources, no matter where they begin their search (EBSCO mobile app, Google, etc.). Using the tool individuals can search for or geolocate the library and authenticate/log-in to the institution's preferred landing profile. For more information, visit EBSCO Connect.


O'Reilly Safari Learning Platform Access Issues

O'Reilly recently updated their authentication layer to improve security, with the unintended effect of disabling some older Safari accounts. All user accounts have since been updated. If you encounter a problem logging into O'Reilly Safari, please contact support@ohiolink.edu.


Content Paused for Gale Databases During Maintenance

Gale databases are undergoing maintenance in the EDS Discovery Service to streamline content loading and resolve current service issues. Content updates will pause from December 2020 through January 2021, with regular updates resuming by the end of January 2021.


New OPAL COI Liaison

Alyssa Mitchell (Walsh University) has taken on the role of COI Liaison, replacing Danielle Bernert.

amitchell@walsh.edu
330-490-7501

 

 


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