News and Updates
July 2005 Release Notes
We are pleased to announce the July release of ScienceDirect. Functionality enhancements and other changes are outlined below.
Shopping Cart
The “shopping cart” is a feature that allows users of Pay per View to carry out multiple transactions with a single purchase process. Users can now select all the articles they wish to download, put them in the shopping cart and register their details when ready to purchase via Pay per View.
Shibboleth Upgraded
The July 23 release involved an upgrade of ScienceDirect's Shibboleth® implementation, allowing the service to support multiple federations. A Shibboleth federation is a group of organizations and vendors that have agreed on a common method of deploying Shibboleth technology, enabling their combined end-user base to login to information services using a single set of credentials.
ScienceDirect already supported the InCommon™ federation in the USA, allowing an increasing number of institutes to access ScienceDirect's content using this unified access method. As a result of the July 23 release, ScienceDirect can now expand this service to other federations in other countries, advancing adoption of this technology throughout the academic community. Our staff will be working with a number of federations in the next few months to set up their participants for Shibboleth access. If you have any questions about Shibboleth access, please contact Elsevier's E-Helpdesk.
Reference Linking from ScienceDirect to Scopus
Since last July's release, ScienceDirect supports linking from ScienceDirect articles to corresponding records in Scopus, allowing end users to unlock Scopus' advanced literature research functionality directly from ScienceDirect's full-text content. Two major functions have been released:
- clicking from an article page on ScienceDirect to the record page of the same article on Scopus, and
- running a Scopus “Cited By” search from an article in ScienceDirect, displaying the results in the Scopus interface.
This functionality will automatically be made available to customers that have access to both ScienceDirect and Scopus.
Document Delivery Service
Since the July 23 release, submitting a document delivery request on ScienceDirect results in a generic request message that is sent to a recipient of the customer's choice. This replaces the pre-set, supplier-specific document delivery request messages that were used by some of our customers. Elsevier E-Helpdesk will pro-actively be working with these customers to ensure uninterrupted document delivery service to their end-user base.
We are pleased to announce a new release of ScienceDirect. The benefits to researchers and librarians include:
- Increased breadth and depth of full-text content means researchers can explore a subject more fully
- Enhanced features and functionalities improve the researchers’ experience.
- Authentication systems make it easier for researchers to gain access.
- Improved customer service
Unless indicated otherwise, the enhancements outlined in this fact sheet are available immediately.