Thought Cloud  

We have been getting a number of enquiries related to OpenAthens login, some of which are as straightforward as the user not knowing what their OpenAthens username and password is. However, some of these enquiries are a bit more complicated.

For those who are new to OpenAthens, “OpenAthens” is one of the tools (or ways) we use authenticating our users when they access our electronic resources.

Within our e-resources team we tend to write blog posts with screenshots, step-by-step guides or presentations, which are all useful tools helping us dealing with enquiries. However on certain occasions, such as phone enquiries, it is better to have a visual material like a flow chart which gives clear and concise instructions to help to solve the problems in a relatively short amount of time. As a result of this, I have created a flow chart by using Lucidchart.

Lucidchart is quite a versatile collaborative tool for creating flow charts, mind maps and other diagrams that has integration to Google Drive (formerly known as Google Docs). You can create a free account to start using Lucidchart, but you would be limited to use 60 shapes. However, if you are member of a staff or a student in a university, you can open an educational account which comes with premium features free of charge.  If you had already opened a non-academic account previously, you can request an upgrade on here.

Creating a flowchart in a process I know quite well was not as easy as I thought it would be. Sometimes, it doesn’t help to know much on the topic as one may overlook certain steps or the layout of the process. It is always helpful to get the opinion of someone who looks at it with “fresh eyes”. After getting very useful feedback from my colleague Mandy from Customer Service Team and my line manager Paul Stainthorp, the version of the flowchart below has been finalised.

There will be a newer version of this flowchart coming up soon once we have upgraded to OpenAthens LA in the next few months.