South Staffordshire Proxy
Quickly access resources off-campus through the South Staffordshire College proxy.
Proxy Bookmarklet
Whenever you are on a site that requires licensed access, click on the "South Staffordshire proxy" bookmarklet. You will be asked to login, and then redirected to the "proxified" version of the site.
What is OpenAthens?
OpenAthens provides a simple and secure way for students, faculty, and staff at South Staffordshire College to connect to academic resources from anywhere in the world. After signing in with your South Staffordshire account, you’ll have full access to the university’s licensed content—without needing to use a VPN or change device settings.
Why use OpenAthens?
Licensing deals with content providers typically limit access to users physically on campus. OpenAthens ensures that students, faculty, and staff at South Staffordshire College can access those same resources from anywhere, simply by logging in with their South Staffordshire username and password.
What’s the difference between EZproxy, OpenAthens, and VPN?
While all three systems—EZproxy, OpenAthens, and VPN—help extend access to university resources beyond the campus, they differ in how they authenticate users. EZproxy relies on IP masking to make remote users appear to be on campus. OpenAthens uses a modern, federated identity system to verify individual users through single sign-on. VPNs route your entire internet connection through the university's network, which can offer broader access but may also slow down your connection or raise security concerns for non-academic browsing.
Quick access to popular databases and journals
- NCBI PubMed
- SCOPUS
- Web of Science
- Nature
- Science
- Oxford Academic Journals
- ProQuest databases
- Ovid
- Springer Link
- ScienceDirect