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OpenAthens Ideas Portal

We're always looking for ways to improve our products, and we'd love your input to help us make that happen. Your suggestions will guide us in deciding where we should focus our future research and development.

Just sign in with your email to share your thoughts or vote for ideas you like—it'll help them get noticed!


Here’s how the portal is organised:

  • Librarians (Identity Providers): Share ideas that help organisations that manage user identities and provide access to online content and services. This includes improving the experience for students and researchers.

  • Publishers (Service Providers): Share ideas for organisations that offer content and services.


Guidance on using this portal

Status Feedback wanted
Workspace Librarians
Categories Terminology
Created by Guest
Created on Jun 23, 2026

Error Message details too scary

For the error message "We are sorry that we cannot complete your request", I'm requesting a rephrasing so it clearer and it's not anxiety inducing. It can be reproduced by using the OpenAthens bookmark to a non-configured site such as google.com.

For those unfamiliar with the bookmark, it's just a bookmarklet with the code "javascript:void(location.href=%22https://go.openathens.net/redirector/organisation?url=%22+location.href)"

It just adds the OpenAthens redirector to the URL.

Below suggested instead of the attached:

===

We couldn’t open this resource

The OpenAthens redirector does not recognise this website or resource because it is not configured for access.

If you expected access, please report this link and the page it was on to your organization so it can be reviewed.

If you continue, you will visit the site without OpenAthens access. Only proceed if you trust the website.

https://google.com

==

Why this works

  • Talking about phishing creates unnecessary anxiety when most of the time this is not the case.

  • The hyperlink to “OpenAthens administrator” just leads to the OpenAthens main page. So, i believe it's broken. Furthermore, not many would know they are using OpenAthens and even less on who is the OpenAthens administrator. But they would know what is their organization.

  • I have users who reported to us they see this error and don't know what to do next.

Is this currently impacting your ability to use OpenAthens effectively? Yes
Idea type Clarity and comprehension of OpenAthens language and instructions
  • Attach files