[Eril-l] New RefWorks accounts and edit record failure consistent problem

[Melissa Belvadi]

I did a carefully controlled test of a "virgin" (never touched RefWorks
before in any version) upei.ca email account completely off campus with no
proxying, and I can report:
1. there was no problem at all with either creating or using the account
without any proxy involvement
2. I cannot reproduce the edit error when using that account off campus
with no proxy involvement

I can't imagine what is going on between RefWorks and ezproxy that could
interfere with editing, and if anyone from OCLC or RefWorks is reading
this, I hope they talk to each other to solve it, but I'm now pretty sure
that removing proxying from anything to do with NR is the solution.

Unfortunately, I don't know yet how to get EBSCOhost/EDS to NOT proxy the
Export process when the EBSCO session itself is proxied, but I have opened
a support ticket about that.  Haven't tested any other platforms' "export
to RefWorks" yet, e.g. Proquest, Ovid, others to see if they all leave
patrons proxied. If they all do, we're going to need to get this fixed by
OCLC/RefWorks rather than every platform that exports directly to RefWorks.

Melissa


On Fri, Oct 28, 2016 at 3:50 PM, Christopher Gross <chrisg at gwu.edu> wrote:

> Interesting! We've had three or four users report that same error message
> when editing a reference, or adding a new reference manually. When I
> reported the problem to RefWorks support, they seemed baffled too. It never
> occurred to me to ask if the users had created new accounts from scratch or
> migrated from the old RefWorks, but now I think I'll go back and check with
> them.... If your proxy idea solves the problem, please post to the list!
> Thanks,
>
> Chris
>
> Christopher Gross
> Electronic Resources Specialist
> Gelman Library
> George Washington University
> chrisg at gwu.edu
> 202-994-3264
>
>
> On Fri, Oct 28, 2016 at 10:30 AM, Melissa Belvadi <mbelvadi at upei.ca>
> wrote:
>
>> Hi, all. We think we've isolated the problem to the fact that we were
>> running our New RefWorks links through ezproxy.  NR doesn't really need it,
>> but since the legacy one did, we just got used to having our
>> Refworks-related links proxied. We're going to remove that and see if the
>> problem goes away.
>>
>> Melissa
>>
>> On Thu, Oct 27, 2016 at 10:44 AM, Melissa Belvadi <mbelvadi at upei.ca>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi, all.
>>> This is for those who have started to use the New RefWorks, and relates
>>> to accounts that are created entirely as NR accounts, not migrated from old
>>> accounts.
>>>
>>> It suddenly struck me that every single account I've helped new students
>>> create, every one, starts off with the function to edit records broken, and
>>> they have to email RefWorks support to get it fixed.
>>>
>>> I am wondering if others are seeing this, or if there could be something
>>> wrong with UPEI's institutional account that could be causing this
>>> corruption in new accounts.
>>>
>>> Here is the precise workflow:
>>>
>>> Student comes to appointment with me to set up and learn how to use
>>> RefWorks for the first time.
>>> We do everything on their own laptop, because I plan to include
>>> Write-n-Cite installation as part of the session. We're on the campus
>>> student wireless network, so unproxied.
>>>
>>> We start with creating the new account.  There are no errors in that
>>> process.
>>> We leave that tab open.
>>> We open a new tab to our Ebsco Discovery Service and do a sample search
>>> to select some records.
>>> We use EDS's function to export a bunch of selected records to the New
>>> RefWorks.
>>> This creates a new open RefWorks tab even though we had left the
>>> original one open, so I close the original tab so we can keep working in
>>> the new tab.
>>> I explain about APA and capitalization, and we immediately click on one
>>> of the citations that needs the article title capitalization fixed. We
>>> click on the little pencil at the far right to edit it.
>>> This opens the editing sidebar on the right.
>>> We fix the capitalization in the title, then click on Save at the top of
>>> that sidebar.
>>> We get at the top centre of the window the message in a red and white
>>> banner:
>>> *"Sorry something went wrong. Please try again."*
>>>
>>> Trying again does absolutely no good.  We are unable to save the editing
>>> changes.
>>>
>>> We send Support an email.
>>>
>>> I don't hear back from the student later, so I don't know if that gets
>>> the problem resolved or not.
>>>
>>> I haven't had a single new student that I have NOT had this problem with.
>>>
>>> Are others seeing this problem?
>>>
>>> Has anyone found out if there's something that can be done to avoid it
>>> or solve it without involving RefWorks Support?
>>>
>>> --
>>> Melissa Belvadi
>>> Collections Librarian
>>> University of Prince Edward Island
>>> mbelvadi at upei.ca 902-566-0581
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Melissa Belvadi
>> Collections Librarian
>> University of Prince Edward Island
>> mbelvadi at upei.ca 902-566-0581
>>
>>
>>
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-- 
Melissa Belvadi
Collections Librarian
University of Prince Edward Island
mbelvadi at upei.ca 902-566-0581
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