The document discusses an eAccess monitoring tool that monitors and alerts users about access availability and problems related to electronic resources. It monitors access to over 340 content providers across 14 different event types. The tool is cloud-based and collects data automatically to provide near real-time alerts. It is easy to set up and was developed for librarians. The tool displays current and historical access status by provider and access route, and allows users to set up alerts for different event types.

1. eAccess monitor & troubleshooting
Michael Leuschner
Commercial Director EMEA
18th September, 2014

2. eAccess monitor & troubleshooting
Libraries which have a high proportion of electronic content
Roles who work intensively with electronic content and want to manage the
access pro-actively
Libraries who have a demanding user groups with regards to access
availability and problem resolution time
Libraries who are often questioned by other stakeholders how they (plan to)
improve user-facing processes and satisfaction
Roles that need various error reports to assess access availability over time
and per platform
2
For who is it?

3. eAccess monitor & troubleshooting
eAccess Monitor has been developed to monitor and alert on access
availability and problems related to access
It is a cloud-based monitor with extensive information pulled automatically into
the tool
It is a near-time alert mechanism (close to real time) that monitors and alerts
on 14 “events”
It operates in line with monitoring restrictions publishers provide and does not
impact usage and does not conflict with providers terms & condition
It is very easy and quick to set up
Developed by a librarian for librarians
3
What is it?

4. eAccess monitor & troubleshooting
Our solutions monitors access to 340+ content providers websites.
It automatically verifies and tracks access to databases, ejournals and
ebook platforms
It automatically discovers and monitors your access to e-resource content
providers and alerts you with 14 different event types
When things affect your access you’ll know when, what, where, and why.
4
What solution we provide

5. 5
Set up
Install the probe for each access route so that the eAccess Monitor can
begin collecting data
Enter and view the access methods that you wish eAccess Monitor to collect and report

6. 6
Access Status
The Access Status screen is a comprehensive view of your current access to electronic resources.
It displays a summary of the most recently-processed data for each Provider from each Access Route.

7. 7
Each Access Route defines a method of accessing your e-resources,
through which you want the eAccess Monitor to verify your
subscriptions.
Access Status

8. 8
Access Status
Does the Provider offer access
via all of your access methods?
Many provider add the customer’s name (label) the access.
Correct labeling indicates if the access for your institution was set
up correctly for each access route

9. 9
Access Status
View the number of titles available
Select the title cell to view the titles.

10. 10
Access Status
Choose which access methods are
shown on screen

11. 11
Access Status
The table cells highlighted with red indicate where the mismatches were found. The Match? column next
to Provider names will show<> instead of = if anything didn't match. This allows you to easily search or
sort the table to show the Providers with a mismatch.

12. 12
Access Status
The table cells highlighted with red indicate where the mismatches were found. The Match? column next
to Provider names will show<> instead of = if anything didn't match. This allows you to easily search or
sort the table to show the Providers with a mismatch.

13. 13
Access Status
View of title overview for multiple
access methods
See which titles are only
accessible from one
access route

14. 14
Events
The events are a record of
• whenever something changed that affected your access to e-resources
• relevant changes to the eAccess Monitor system itself
14 event types
Access Lost
Access Route Inactive
Exceeded Concurrent User Limit
Expected Access Gained
Manually Entered Event
Provider Error
Provider Unavailable
Proxy Server Error
Proxy Server Unavailable
Proxy Server Authentication Failed
Subscription Label Changed
Subscription Label Missing
Titles Changed
Unexpected Access Gained

15. 15
Events
Provider Start & End time
Access route
updated
has notes
Name

16. 16
Select the link to view the
details of the event
Events

17. 17
Events
Search for a chosen
Provider to filter results

18. Provider Options
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View whether the provider has been
activated for data to be collected by
the eAccess Monitor

19. Provider Options
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Search & Select a provider to see
the general status
Use “details” & “edit” to change the settings
See the timeline (history) of the access checks
Select one or more counts to see an
overview of the titles included and a
comparison to easily view the title
differences

20. Provider Options
20
Based on the selected samples (see top table) the
title differences are listed

21. Provider Options
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Add any relevant URLs and Codes
required in order to gain access, and
begin monitoring are displayed

22. User Management
View the list of users who can access the eAccess Monitor
Easily amend existing
users, or add new
users
User groups can be
defined

23. Alerts
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Set up alerts so that users can be informed automatically if
the eAccess Monitor encounters any access issues
Configure User specific alert based
on 5 categories

24. eAccess monitor & troubleshooting
To be informed on access availability of providers
To be notified when access to provider websites is disrupted via auto alerts
To view reports on each content provider’s uptime (availability) including latest
info and historical data
To identify whether access to content is being granted across all access
routes/campuses or if there is a problem
To see an overview of the provided access routes (VPN, on campus, etc) have
a mismatch of labeling and/or title information (if available)
To receive auto notifications when providers add or remove your access to
specific databases, ejournals, ebooks, etc.
To see the locations and durations of current and past access problems
recorded at your site
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Why are customers using it?

25. eAccess monitor & troubleshooting
Improve user satisfaction with the library services - React before user have a negative
experience and talk about it
Reference librarians and others on the front lines of support will be able to see the
current and historical status of all your online resources to inform users competently
Make sure you’re getting ALL the e-resource access you’ve paid for, throughout your
entire organization, year-round.
Makes the complex work of troubleshooting access problems much easier
The reports also support the license & SLA negotiation with the content providers
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Main Benefits
“Out of 10 users facing an access issue only 1 will report it. The other 9 will just
accept it as an imperfect service and will talk about their negative experience”
eAccess librarian from a university in Germany

26. Questions & Feedback
26

27. Additional Slides
Typical customer questions
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28. eAccess monitor & troubleshooting
Typical customer question
What do you exactly mean by “monitoring access?
The eAccess monitor displays which platforms (provider name and
platform/database name) the customer has access to
It shows when access problems started and resolved, and reports on 14
different event types that are related to access of electronic content
Content types can include subscribed, open access and free content
eAccess Monitor works independently from the customers holding list. Any
data returned from the providers into eAccess Monitor reflects the subscribed
content available to users, plus OA content and free content available via the
providers platform at the time the data collection is made
Customers can set up/customise provider and title data returned from
publisher to show whether access should be available or not. This allows
customers to get an overview of whether the correct entitlement (expected vs
actual access) is being given - see graphic next slide
As a conclusion the tool it might show more or less providers/content then the
customer has licensed (missing provider can be added on request) 28

29. eAccess monitor & troubleshooting
Can we integrate and monitor our holdings or A-Z list?
An integration to an ERMS system or an upload function of the holding list is
not possible at the moment
But customers can choose to mark and update those providers they want to
monitor (and have in their holding list)
Although there is no download option of the list of accessible providers, the
table can be easily copied into an xls format and then matched against a
holding or A-Z list
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Typical customer question
Set up to which
platforms you
have access and
get it monitored

30. eAccess monitor & troubleshooting
Can you see title information (#, title name, etc?)
The tool shows title data only from those providers who make the information
available on their website
The probe does not trigger/invoke access to the content as this is often
prohibited by the terms & conditions set by the providers or customers &
providers do not want it as it inflates the usage.
Remark: Of the more than 340+ listed content provider
A) ca. 10% make title level information available (see list on next slide). It might increase over
time and does not reflect the volume of titles
B) some providers offer only access to all content or none (all or nothing)
C) some have a combination access to all journal content when licensed but for eBooks is
based on packages
Currently we are looking into what more information we can add to the provider to give more
granular insight
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Typical customer question

31. 31
eAccess monitor & troubleshooting
Providers with title information
Provider Company Name Platform / Database name
ABC-Clio ABC-Clio Databases
ABC-Clio ABC-Clio eBooks
Alexander Street Press Alexander Street Press Collections
American Academy of Pediatrics AAP Grand Rounds
American Association for the Advancement
AAAS Science Journals
of Science
Annual Reviews Annual Reviews
AnthroSource AnthroSource
Beijing Founder Apabi Technology Co., Ltd. Apabi Digital Library
BioOne BioOne
Blackwell Publishing Blackwell Reference Online
Brepols Publishers BREPOLiS
Cambridge University Press Cambridge Journals Online
CAS SciFinder Registration
Cornell University Library & Duke University
Project Euclid
Press
CQPress CQPress Electronic Library
East View Information Services East View Online Databases
East View Information Services Russian/NIS Statistical Publications
ebrary ebrary Books
EBSCO EBSCO Host
Economist, The Economist Intelligence Unit
Emerald Publishing Group Emerald
Frost & Sullivan Frost & Sullivan
Gale Group Gale Cengage Learning
Hein Hein Online
Ingenta Ingenta Connect
Provider Company Name Platform / Database name
International Monetary Fund IMF Statistical Databases
IOP Publishing IOP Science
JSTOR JSTOR US
Naxos Digital Services Ltd. Naxos Music Library
Naxos Digital Services Ltd. Naxos Video Library
NewsBank NewsBank
OCLC OCLC FirstSearch
Ovid Ovid SP
Oxford University Press Oxford Reference Online
ProQuest ProQuest online databases
ProQuest/Chadwyck-Healey Chadwyck-Healey Literature Collections
ReferenceUSA ReferenceUSA
S. Karger AG Karger
SAE International SAE Digital Library
SAGE SAGE Journals Online
SAGE SAGE Knowledge
Teton Data Systems STAT!Ref
The Business Journals Business Journals Digital Network
Thieme Connect Thieme Connect
Thinkmap Visual Thesaurus
Thomson Reuters ISI Web of Knowledge
Thomson Reuters Checkpoint
TwinBridge Software Corp. China People's Daily

32. eAccess monitor & troubleshooting
Does it integrate with Shibboleth & Open Athens?
We are currently investigating the integration of Shibboleth & Open Athens
We need our first customer to get it developed
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Typical customer question

33. eAccess monitor & troubleshooting
How does a probe operate (technical process)?
The tool uses customer-installed probe software for ground truth accurate
measurement of your e-content access.
The probe software is tiny, efficient, and unobtrusive so it can be deployed
almost anywhere in your organization, even on public-access, lab, or shared
staff workstations.
Wherever your probes are installed, the eAccess monitor will check and
monitor if you’re getting the access you’re paying for.
IT personnel will appreciate that probes are fast and easy to install, self-updating,
and secure. The probes store no data and need neither
configuration nor backups.
The probes work even on our customers’ networks who use firewalls, DHCP,
NAT, and through many VPNs.
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Typical customer question

34. eAccess monitor & troubleshooting
Does the tool also resolve the access issue?
No, it can not solve the issue itself as there can be to many variations of the
cause
It is a monitor and notifies/alerts on 14 events. Each event classifies what the
issue caused and with that makes the troubleshooting much easier
Some events present precisely on screen what the cause is and some also
allow a more granular drill down
For most of the event types the tool does automatically detect when the issue
has been resolved.
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Typical customer question

35. 35
eAccess monitor & troubleshooting
14 Events you can monitor
Access Lost
Access Route Inactive
Exceeded Concurrent User Limit
Expected Access Gained
Manually Entered Event
Provider Error
Provider Unavailable
Proxy Server Error
Proxy Server Unavailable
Proxy Server Authentication Failed
Subscription Label Changed
Subscription Label Missing
Titles Changed
Unexpected Access Gained
Events have valuable information
• Start and Resolve time
• Drill down functions depending
on the event type
For each Event you can set up an Alert
• Configure the parameters
• Assign a recipient/role

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eAccess monitor & troubleshooting
Event Type Description
Access Lost
You have lost access to a e-resource that you had previously. Most of the time, this happens by mistake at the content provider and it often gets
fixed in a few hours without you having to report it.
If this happened legitimately because you DID cancel or expire a subscription, you should mark the event as verified and resolved so it no longer
looks like a problem status.
If you have verified this loss is in error and it persists very long, you should notify the content provider of the problem.
Access Route Inactive
Warns that no probe has been active for several hours for an Access Route. Until a machine with the probe comes back online, EAccess Monitor
can not detect or resolve changes to your providers for that route. This occurs most often at locations where the computer(s) hosting the probe
software get shut off nights or weekends.
Exceeded Concurrent User Limit At the moment EAccess Monitor verified this subscription, your limit of concurrent user sessions had already been reached.
Expected Access Gained
You have gained new access to e-resource provider. You may have just subscribed to this, though sometimes this happens by accident as well. If
there is a subscription label available in the notes, you can often tell from it whether the new access was intended for your institution.
Since this event is typically a good thing that should remain in effect, it gets "resolved" immediately.
Manually Entered Event
Any type of event you want to insert to display, record, or cause alerts. Sharp Moon Support occasionally announces system changes this way.
But this was designed to be most useful to customers with the companion Elara service (not yet available).
Provider Error
The content provider's website is down for maintenance or an unplanned failure. This is usually a known problem at the content provider, and
details might be posted on their website.
Provider Unavailable
The content provider's website is completely down or unreachable from this network location. This is usually a problem that your content provider
will correct.
Proxy Server Error Your proxy server is returning an error instead of normal responses.
Proxy Server Unavailable EAccess Monitor is unable to connect to your proxy server.
Proxy Server Authentication Failed EAccess Monitor is unable to authenticate to your proxy server with the credentials defined (in the relevant Access Route).
Subscription Label Changed
For most e-resource providers, EAccess Monitor records your co-branding label or institutional identifier(s) shown by the content provider. That
label has changed and you should look at the notes or alert message to compare new and old labels. This event could be good or bad.
• If the new and old labels both refer to your institution (e.g. "Univ. Illinois" changed to "University of Illinois") then it simply confirms your
subscription and/or co-branding configuration were updated.
• If the new label refers to some other institution, your subscription access has been disrupted by the provider and they should be notified.
• Some providers assign arbitrary numeric codes for identifiers. Still, knowing this code has changed is an indicator that your scope of
access has been changed at the provider.
Subscription Label Missing
For most e-resource providers, EAccess Monitor records your co-branding label or institutional identifier(s) shown by the content provider. That
label has disappeared, which usually indicates you have lost access to some or all of your content within that provider's site.
Titles Changed
EAccess Monitor has detected a set of access titles that differs from what you had for this Access Route previously. The event notes (and any
email alerts) will show before and after total counts of Collections/Databases and Titles available to you. You can compare the detailed list of titles
in the Access Status screen.
If this happens at the same time as a Subscription Label Changed event, you will probably be able to tell whether the accessible titles changed as
a result of getting a different subscription. If the new subscription label is incorrect, restoring the correct IP ranges for the subscriptions should
correct the title listing as well.
Unexpected Access Gained You have gained access to a e-resource provider that you weren't expecting. This is usually a temporary mistake by the content provider.