Overview
Your proxy works as an intermediary between your users and the databases and content they are trying to access. Users connect to your proxy server, which connects on their behalf to the licensed databases to obtain web pages, and sends these pages back to the user.
Talis Courseflow offers the ability to automatically apply your specified proxy string or prefix to web addresses in your resource lists that match specific criteria. This article explains how you are able to customise these, without any changes made to the URLs which appear in the bookmarked reading list items.
Supported proxy systems
No matter what proxy service your university uses (eg. EZProxy, WAM proxy, OpenAthens redirector, or a homegrown proxy service), we can assist you in applying automatic proxy in your resource lists.
Available settings for applying automatic proxy
Proxy web addresses on a specific type of resource
You are able to apply a proxy to all items of a particular resource type. There are a number of different resource types that can be selected in any combination.
- Academic Article
- Audio Visual Document
- Book
- Chapter
- Journal
- Legal case document
- Webpage
- Website
Proxy all DOI links
The proxy can be applied to all items which contain a DOI, we refer to this as the Proxy Rewriter for DOI.
Proxy only specific web addresses
It may be that you only want the proxy to apply to specific URLs, and not, for example, all journals. You are able to specify which URL patterns you would like to apply the proxy to. We refer to this functionality as the proxy inclusion list.
You can specify a URL pattern as a regular expression using a PHP regular expression pattern syntax.
Don't proxy specific web addresses
There might be specific URLs that you don't want the proxy applied to (eg. Open Access databases or websites). As with the proxy inclusion list, you are able to specify URL patterns to exclude from the proxy url rewriting. We refer to this exclusion as the proxy exclusion list.
Your proxy string is automatically added to this exclusion list, to ensure that the proxy is not applied to a web address that already contains your proxy string.
You can specify a url pattern as a regular expression using a PHP regular expression pattern syntax.
Automatically add proxy vs hardcoding the web address
Advantage for students: They are not asked to purchase materials that the university library already has available via a subscription. This is because the proxy connects to the resource, recognising the user from the university domain, who is then authorised to view the items needed for their studies.
Advantage for resource list managers: Having Talis Courseflow apply the proxy string means that these are not hardcoded into the web address field of your items. Should your university change your proxy service, simply raise a support ticket and we will assist you in updating this, ensuring uninterrupted access for your users.
NOTE: There may be instances where the proxy address has been captured in web address field in reading list items (manually added or otherwise). You can use the All List Items report to identify where this is the case.
Why do we recommend using qurl and not url?
For OCLC EzProxy systems, we recommend that you should use qurl because it accepts a url-encoded parameter, whereas url does not. Read more in this helpful article.
How do I have this enabled for my tenancy?
If you are interested in adding or updating your proxy application settings in Talis Courseflow, please raise a support ticket.