How do I use EZproxy for research from off-campus?

A Recommended Approach

There is more that one way to connect to subscription databases and journals research from off campus. The easiest approach is:

1. Go to the Library homepage
2. Choose one of these options to start your research:
   • Search the library catalog
   • Use the Database Locator
   • Use a Research Guide
   • Use the Journal Search form
3. Log in to EZproxy when you are prompted. You should only need to log in once per research session.

See the Off Campus Access page for more information about logging in. If you experience any problems logging in, contact Ask a Librarian.

When and how to Login to EZproxy

Links on the Library's site are set up to use EXproxy as needed. When you click on a proxied link you will be asked to log in. Log in by entering your Library ID and the last 4 of your PID. After a successful log in, the database or journal page will open.

Alternatively, you can choose to log in at the start of your session by going to the Off Campus Access page, then use the Articles & Database page.

Links on most other sites will not prompt you to log in, and will not give you UCF EZproxy access. See Starting Point Links below for more information.

EZproxy and Full Text Links

EZproxy facilitates easy access to full text. Once you log in to database or index, such as Academic Search Premier, Compendex, or Google Scholar, the links to full text will not require any further login. Try the Academic Search Premier example below to see how one log in takes you to the database and on to the full text with only one log in. Click to see all the full text options available to UCF for any given article.

EZproxy and Google Scholar

Google Scholar is popular with faculty and students as a quick search across a broad swath of scholarly material. Google Scholar and EZproxy can work together to offer you very convenient access to some of the Library's full text journals (not all are included in Google).

To use Google Scholar with UCF's EZproxy, use the Google Scholar link in the Database Locator the Library website (in the Database Locator list under G) or bookmark the link in the Examples here. Going directly to scholar.google.com will not work for using UCF's EZproxy, and you will not see links to UCF's Full text. It works like our other proxied databases - only one log in will be required to search the index then go to the full text.

General Information and Factoids about EZproxy

The UCF Libraries subscribes to databases and journals for UCF students and employees. We use EZproxy to support convenient access to the subscriptions by the UCF community, while preventing unauthorized use. To fully understand why, you need to understand how vendors recognize UCF and how the proxy works.

IPs and EZproxy

The vendors look for the UCF IP to authorize access to subscription journals and databases. When you are off campus, your computer will not have a UCF IP address. It will have an IP from your ISP (i.e. Bellsouth, Brighthouse, etc.). If you go to a journal page from home, the journal vendor will not know you are a UCF student or employee.

Computers on the UCF network have an IP starting 132.170 by default, so PCs in the labs, offices, and library have access and do not need to log in to EZproxy. UCF's EZproxy server is on campus and has the 132.170 IP address. When you log in, EZproxy mediates your interactions with the vendor sites. All the traffic passes through the proxy, so the vendor sees the UCF IP, and you get full subscriber access. For more information, see the Wikipedia article about EZproxy.

EZproxy Starting Point URLs

Starting point URLs combine the EZproxy URL and a URL for a destination site, such as journal or database page. When you click the starting point link, you are first taken to the EZproxy login page. After a successful login, you are taken to the destination site. The URL for UCF's EZproxy is http://ezproxy.lib.ucf.edu.

The links on UCF Library websites are EZproxy Starting Point URLs, and will prompt you to log in as needed. You can create your own Starting Point URLs by putting http://ezproxy.lib.ucf.edu/login?url= in front of a URL. It will work with UCF subscriptions, persistent links from databases and journals sites (so you can make deep links to searches or articles). For more help creating Starting Point URLs, contact Athena Hoeppner or Library Instruction.

UCF EZproxy Factoids

• EZproxy requires cookies. Please set your browser to accept cookies from ucf.edu and fcla.edu. Cookie Instructions.
• EZproxy uses a configuration file to control which web sites will be proxied. Most commercial sites are not included in the configuration file. For example, UCF's EZproxy won't proxy Amazon.com pages.
• UCF networked computers have a UCF IP (starting with 132.170) and can't log in to EZproxy.
• EZproxy times-out after 20 minutes of inactivity, and you will have to re-log in.

Last updated April 06, 2011 12:41:02 PM

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