Virginia Seminary Proxy
Quickly access resources off-campus through the Virginia Theological Seminary proxy.
Proxy Bookmarklet
Whenever you are on a site that requires licensed access, click on the "Virginia Seminary proxy" bookmarklet. You will be asked to login, and then redirected to the "proxified" version of the site.
What is OpenAthens?
OpenAthens is a single sign-on service that lets Virginia Theological Seminary students, faculty, and staff securely access the university’s online resources from anywhere. Once you're logged in with your Virginia Seminary credentials, you can explore journals, databases, and other academic content—just as if you were on campus.
Why use OpenAthens?
Some of Virginia Theological Seminary’s most valuable digital resources are only available to users on the campus network. OpenAthens makes those resources available off-campus too—just sign in with your Virginia Seminary credentials, and you’ll be recognized as an authorized user no matter where you are.
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
- IEEE Xplore Digital Library
- ProQuest databases
- Oxford Academic Journals
- JSTOR
- ScienceDirect