Refworks and EZProxy

[Erin Rushton]

Hello

We currently support both the *new* Refworks and the *legacy Refworks*.  Both of these platforms are proxied.   Whenever we try and export references from a database, however, only the legacy platform opens.  This happens even on brand new computers that have never accessed the legacy platform.  We also cleared our cookies/history, then opened the new Refworks, then tried to export.  The legacy interface still opened.   

A Refworks technical support specialist suggested that we include stanzas for both the new RefWorks and legacy RefWorks platforms in our EZProxy database.  Because the legacy and new RefWorks platform utilizes a cookie, the users browser should *know* which interface to open i.e. the legacy or new platform.  As I mentioned above, this is not happening.  

The support specialist has referred us to EZProxy.  I will attempt to contact their support service as well.  In the meantime,  I'm curious to know if there are any other libraries that are supporting both the new and legacy platforms and if so, have success with exporting from databases to the new platform.

Thank you

Erin 

 

[Dave Hoover]

I was just looking at this issue for Rutgers and this is what I found though it may be slightly different from what you are seeing.

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spent alot of time on this today from a remote location and found
that:

- if you log in to Refworks 3 (Flow) first using the proxy
  and keep the browser open then use the catalog export to
  Refworks it will go to Refworks 3

- if you log in to Refworks first using the proxy and keep the
  browser open and then use the catalog export to Refworks it
  will go to Refworks

The behavior above seems to be controlled by a cookie that not only
gets sets in the browser, but on the proxy side as well since it is
the agent that is talking to Refworks on your browsers behalf.

- if however you close the browser and come back in and just do a
  catalog export to Refworks it will go to whatever the URL is for
  that resource (www.refworks.com or refworks.proquest.com) for the
  catalog it is the former.

- even if the browser is saving its local cookie through a browser
  restart it still does not work since it is based on what is happening
  on the proxy side.

- the proxy while still having the cookie and its association to the
  previous session you used, the act of closing the browser clears
  the proxy's cookie from your browser and the association to that
  old session is lost. Instead you get a new session and new cookies
  that know nothing about the previous ones.

So I don't think that anything can be done about this since the proxy is
not meant to save state and session information after you exit the browser.

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Also realize that Refworks sets cookies so you will need to be using the proxy to both connect to Refworks as well as the database where you are exporting the citation.