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Overview
The ProQuest platform user experience is driven by deep analysis of researcher behaviors, extensive testing with users and librarians, beta testing with a variety of customer development partners, and large-scale A/B testing.
Here's a summary of our most recent updates to the ProQuest Platform. As always, we welcome your feedback.
Recent Enhancements
October 2020: ProQuest Platform now ASPIRE certified
We are proud to announce that the ProQuest Platform has received the maximum score of 100 percent in the ASPIRE verified Accessibility Audit for the quality of the ProQuest Platform accessibility statement. This achievement recognizes an organization’s commitment to ensuring its accessibility statements are a true representation of the accessibility of the platforms they describe in order to provide full transparency to both customers and end-users.
Both the ProQuest Platform and Ebook Central have achieved a gold ASPIREreview. You can view the ASPIRE platform list here: https://www.textboxdigital.com/aspirelist-platforms
The ProQuest Platform Accessibility statement is available here: https://about.proquest.com/go/accessibility-platform
July 2020: New enhancements improve discovery and adds more open access content
On July 30, ProQuest released several new enhancements to the ProQuest Platform. These enhancements are part of our larger, ongoing initiative to add value to our solutions, expand pathways to access and help libraries increase usage of their resources. No action is required by you or your users to activate these improvements.
• Expand Results checkbox
• Publicly Available Content Database now available to all ProQuest Platform customers
Expand Results checkbox
To better support users who require added context to complete their research tasks, a checkbox labeled “Show results outside my library’s subscription” will be added to the search results page. When the checkbox is selected by the user, their search results will expand to include relevant ProQuest content outside the library’s subscription alongside entitled content.
Let’s say a student is using ProQuest to search for information on running biomechanics, and her search returns a limited number of results. She can use the new functionality to include relevant ProQuest content outside of her library’s subscription and explore her topic through a more comprehensive result set.
Expanded results unchecked
To see these additional items, users simply need to check the box to “Show results outside my library’s subscription”. Note unchecking the box will return the results to its original state.
The label to the right of the results item indicates the level of availability as based on format and a user's entitlement e.g. 'Full Text', 'Citation/Abstract' or 'Preview Available'.
By default, the expanded results checkbox is visible for all customers. Keep in mind, searches are limited to your available databases. Your users must choose to expand their results to include these additional items and this can only be done from the search results page with two or more databases selected. However, if there are concerns about making non-subscribed content available to users, your library administrator can disable this functionality in the ProQuest Administrator Module. Instructions on how to opt out of preview and open access items is provided here.
Publicly Available Content Database now included with all ProQuest Platform subscriptions
As part of our goal to improve access to subscription and open access content, libraries with at least one ProQuest Platform Database will have the Publicly Available Content Database added to their subscriptions at no charge.
Now your users can search thousands of reliable open-access scholarly full text sources without leaving the ProQuest Platform.
The Publicly Available Content Database includes vetted coverage of reliable scholarly sources – and excludes potentially problematic publications that are inconsistent with ProQuest's editorial guidelines. The Publicly Available Content Database is available at this link on the ProQuest Platform.
Access the ProQuest Platform from www.proquest.com
Now your users can start their research by going directly to www.proquest.com to enter the ProQuest Platform. If they are on campus and IP authenticated they'll search the ProQuest content provided by your library. Unauthenticated users will be able to search and preview content and be required to authenticate to access susbscriber only content. No work is required on your end to enable this and none of your links will be impacted. Tell your students and faculty to simply "Go to ProQuest.com" to access your library's ProQuest content. In addition, the new structure includes links to about.proquest.com where you will find product information and the latest ProQuest news.
Please contact us if you have questions, feedback or other concerns.
June 2020: Direct entry from the open web | Search, find and preview over 900M documents on the ProQuest Platform without authenticating
Earlier this week, we released a series of enhancements which enabled direct entry into the ProQuest Platform from the open web. This functionality allows users to search, find and preview more than 900 million documents without authentication and retrieve Open Access full-text content curated by ProQuest.
This update helps libraries “meet users where they are,” giving students, faculty and researchers fast and frictionless access to their ProQuest content for remote research and learning.
It’s the first in a series of enhancements that will streamline research, extend pathways to access and increase usage of the materials libraries have invested in. In the coming months, ProQuest content will be accessible directly from major search engine results.
There is no action required by you at this time. These enhancements will be automatically released for the benefit of your library and its users.
This release also includes several enhancements to make it easier for your users to authenticate into ProQuest and raises the prominence of your library throughout the interface. Here are the details:
- Improved Authentication Process: The new preview functionality includes login prompts at multiple points to encourage the user to authenticate so they can access their institution’s owned/subscribed content and their usage can attributed to their library. Thus, we’ve improved the authentication process to make easier for users to find their institution either by searching for it by name or using their institutional email address. Once authenticated, users temporarily logged into the ProQuest Platform for up to 90 days after their authentication. This will not only reduce the impact on institutions remote access facilities but also ensure users’ access to content at the point when they need it.
- Boosting Visibility of the Library within the ProQuest Platform: Once authenticated, users will see the name of their authenticated institution in the header of page. This will raise the prominence of the subscribing institution and help reinforce the service provided by the library.
Frequently asked questions
Please review our Frequently Asked Questions on entry from the open web article for additional information.
These are the first in a series of enhancements that will streamline research, extend pathways to access and increase usage of the materials libraries have invested in. Please contact us if you have questions, feedback or other concerns.
January 2019
Streamlined Access to More ProQuest Content
Our next release will make content from these ProQuest resources discoverable and usable on the ProQuest Platform, and introduce a redesigned search results page:
- Ebook Central (see details)
- Academic Video Online (see details)
- Literature Online (see details)
- Redesigned search results page (see details)
Find Ebook Central Titles on the ProQuest Platform
Libraries with subscriptions on Ebook Central such as Academic Complete and ProQuest databases such as ProQuest Central will be able to find and use ebooks directly on the ProQuest platform. The new experience mirrors what users currently see on Ebook Central. Note we'll provide an update soon on when this functionality will be available to Ebook Central customers with titles available only via PAL and/or DDA.
Book detail page: The book detail pages on both platforms look nearly identical (see the ProQuest platform version below). Expand the table of contents, view a title’s availability, download content or navigate to the online reader.
When a user attempts to download, save to PDF, copy, print, save to bookshelf, highlight, annotate or bookmark, they’ll be prompted to log into their bookshelf account. In this first release, ebook customers will need to log into two separate user accounts to save documents: My Bookshelf for Ebook Central and My Research for the ProQuest platform. Integration of this functionality will be a priority for 2019.
Collection management: Ebook Central collection management will continue on LibCentral, the administrative portal for LibCentral.
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Watch Academic Video Online Videos on the ProQuest Platform
Academic Video Online customers will now be able to find and watch streaming video on both the native Alexander Street interface and the ProQuest platform. The video experience, including synchronized transcripts, will mirror the Alexander Street platform viewing experience. Clip- and playlist-making functionality will come to the ProQuest platform in a future release.
Literature Online Moves to the ProQuest Platform
Literature Online is moving from its legacy Chadwyck-Healey interface to the ProQuest platform. Dual access will start with this release and will continue through mid-2019, giving users ample time to get comfortable with the benefits of the new experience. Get the details on the Literature Online customer resource page.
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Redesigned Search Results Page
In addition to adding more content, we’re redefining how it’s delivered. After consulting with librarians, students and faculty, we’ve redesigned the search results page to help prevent information overload. You’ll see two new sidebars on the right side of your search results displaying the most relevant ebooks and videos. Enhancements like these make it easier for your users to interact with the varied content types users need to complete their work.
Bookmark this Page for More Updates
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July 2018
The July 2018 ProQuest platform release introduced a redesigned basic search page. These improvements put more emphasis on source types to help researchers retrieve more relevant results from across the platform. Here’s a summary of the enhancements included with this release:
Basic Search page
- Source type limiter: A horizontal source type limiter was added just above the basic search box to help users limit their results to the content types most meaningful to them. The limiter displays the top three to four source types available within the users selected databases. Further source types are available under a ‘More’ menu. The order of source types is determined by usage analytics and qualitative feedback from end users.
- Search tips: To better support researchers at the point of need, thoughtfully placed help panels provide search guidance at the point of the most need. To make room for the help panels, the subject vertical links were removed (but these can still be accessed via the ‘Databases’ page).
- “You are searching…” statement: To better orient researchers who start their search from the basic search page, a statement was added that tells them how many databases they are searching and the top source types contained within those databases.
Search results page
- Filters: Through a close examination of user behavior, we’ve simplified the filters menus so that the most useful are displayed by default and made the less used filters accessible from the ‘More’ menu.
Additional improvements
- Records counts are removed from the Source Type filter
- The date picker has been simplified
- Clearer indicator of Full text/Abstract/Details
- Revised display for inline images
- Long document titles will be truncated/limited to 3 lines
- The check boxes for full text/peer reviewed were removed from underneath the search field on results page.
May 2018
The latest ProQuest platform release includes changes to SUSHI generated COUNTER 4 journal reports:
- Effective May 21 COUNTER 4 Journal reports generated using SUSHI clients will no longer report journals with zero usage. Only positive usage metrics will be reported.
- This will ensure the reports are able to be generated and reported in a timely manner for SUSHI clients.
- Journal reports generated in the ProQuest Administrator Module (PAM) for the tab-separated (Excel-compatible) or HTML formats are not impacted by this change; they will continue to support the reporting of zero-usage. Only the XML formats harvested through SUSHI will no longer support the generation of zero usage
- Lastly, no changes are required by the library administrator and ProQuest reports remain COUNTER 4 compliant.
Please contact ProQuest Technical Support if you have questions on these changes.
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January 2018
The latest ProQuest platform release includes changes to the document view to make it easier for your users to find related content:
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Previously, the Related Items panel on the right-hand side of the document view was closed by default. In order for users to see related content, they needed to click to open the panel. With this release, the Related Items panel will be open by default.
- Our usage analysis showed that a high percentage of users who used the Related Items panel follow the links to view at least one more document on the ProQuest platform. The recommendations reflect both documents used in conjunction with the presently viewed document and documents with similar indexing.
- These recommendations are similar to when a website like Amazon suggests other products that have been purchased along with the product being viewed in the same transaction. These changes are now live for all institutions using databases on the ProQuest platform.
Get Started
Have a question? Review the latest FAQ’s on the ProQuest Platform.
Watch our YouTube videos. Check them out here.
Training
- Live and recorded trainings are available. Check out the schedule here.
- Libguide: a complete online guide for your users.
Global Support
ProQuest offers best-in-class customer service and technical support, so you can hit the ground running.
If the above information does not answer your questions feel free to contact us and we will be happy to assist.