Institutional access
Oxford University Press (OUP) accommodates different approaches for managing authentication to your institution’s subscription(s).
IP authentication
The most common method of access is IP (Internet Protocol) address authentication. Every computer in your network that accesses the Internet (or the proxy server that accesses it on behalf of your network) is assigned an IP address. Authentication through IP addresses means that users do not need to individually log in to validate their right to access content, their IP will be recognised and the user automatically authenticated when presenting at the paywall.
A typical IP address looks like this:
192.168.201.66
It may also be part of a range:
192.168.201.40-144
To enable your users to have automatic IP based access to the titles in your subscription, you will need to register the external, static IP addresses associated with your institution from which users may access resources.
Your IT department will be able to provide this range. When listing a range of IPs, it is crucial that the entire range is exclusive to your institution. Including IPs that are not exclusive to your institution allows the possibility of unauthorised 3rd party users gaining access using your authentication without realising. Typical ranges will involve changing only the last component of the address significantly, or the 3rd component by a couple of digits (e.g. 192.168.201.40 – 192.168.203.40). Any range wider than this would imply tens of thousands of IP addresses which is likely to be incorrect. Where there is a break in the exclusive IP Addresses within a range, these will need to be added to the settings as multiple ranges (For example, if 192.168.201.122 was not exclusive to your institution, this would need to be input as two ranges 192.168.201.40-192.168.201.121 and 192.168.201.123-192.168.201.144, thereby omitting .122).
Please note that OUP supports IPv4 format.
As of February 2024, IP addresses should be managed via theIPregistry.org. The registry is a free service for libraries that enables you to communicate IP changes not only to OUP but also to other participating publishers with whom you may have licensed content.
This process will take the place of submitting updates via OUP's customer service team or making changes via My Account in Oxford Academic.
Referring URL
If you have an external facing password-protected website, library portal, or intranet that is accessible to members only, OUP can set up a Referring URL to provide seamless access for both internal and remote users. Contact Customer Services with the URLs of your password-protected pages that hold the links to OUP resources, and we will assist with completing setup.
Proxy
Proxy services, such as WAM or EZProxy provide access to subscribed resources for users who are working remotely, outside the institution’s network. If your institution uses EZProxy, please see OCLC documentation on how to update your ezproxy.cfg file. You can find OUP specific URLs on the journals and collections. Your proxy should be on a secure network that is only accessible to authorized users.
Shibboleth and OpenAthens
Shibboleth and OpenAthens are two of the most popular ways organisations can roll out single sign-on (SSO) authentication. SSO means users can have a single username and password to access any compatible subscribed resource. This can include, for example, accessing course notes from home or logging into online books or journals your organisation subscribes to across different publishers.
Both Shibboleth and OpenAthens are underpinned by SAML (Security Assertion Markup Language) technology – the same language used by services such as Microsoft Authenticator or Google CASA.
Your Library administrator can register your Entity ID and Scope in the MyAccount portal.
Once activated, users should click the “Sign in via your institution” button and follow the on screen instructions to access content.
OUP currently supports the following Federations:
- AAF (Australia)
- CARSI & CST (China)
- eduGAIN (Global)
- Edugate (Ireland)
- GaKuNin (Japan)
- InCommon (United States)
- OpenAthens (Global)
- SWITCH (Switzerland)
- UK Access Management Federation (United Kingdom)
Please contact us if your Federation is not currently supported, nor a member of EduGAIN, we would be happy to discuss potentially undertaking the work required directly with your Federation’s appropriate representative.
Alternatively, if your Federation is a full member of EduGAIN, and your organisation has not opted out of EduGAIN services, we can successfully register your details without further action.
EduGAIN is a program promoting partnership between global Federations and Service Providers. Any Federation can join, providing they meet the membership requirements. Once enrolled, a Federation’s metadata will then then appear in the cumulative EduGAIN metadata, minus any organisations who have opted out of EduGAIN services.
To see if your Federation is part of EduGAIN, and find out more about opting in/out and the joining requirements, please visit the EduGAIN portal.
Library card
Users can access resources remotely using their personal library card number where institutions have registered library card ranges with Customer Services. You will need to provide the number of digits in the range and let us know which parts of the range are static.
Google Universal CASA
Google Universal CASA (Campus Activated Subscriber Access) has been enabled across the Oxford Academic platform. CASA enables Google Scholar users from subscribing institutions to access their subscription content even when they are not on campus. Universal CASA extends this capability beyond content indexed by Google Scholar to enable seamless access where possible. To enable CASA to work remotely, users will need to initially access content on their own device while on campus. When users access content via CASA subsequently on the same device and browser, they will be able to gain access to your OUP subscriptions. This is counted as part of your institutional usage and will be included in COUNTER-5 statistics.
