FAQs

GetFTR is a service that streamlines the journey between discovery of academic content and access to the latest version of the full text. The service provides real time entitlement checks so that researchers can easily determine which content their institution has made available to them, when both on or off-campus. By clicking the GetFTR link in a participating discovery resource, they can rapidly access research from participating publisher websites. Libraries and researchers do not need to opt-in, register, or download any new software, links automatically appear in search results, article pages, personal libraries or wherever the discovery tool has integrated.

Discovery services, such as search engines, databases, reference management tools and scholarly collaboration networks can integrate GetFTR into their platform to provide users with fast, streamlined access to published content. GetFTR checks entitlements and provides researchers with rapid access to the research they need, enabling integrators to link directly to the most up-to-date and best available version of the content. GetFTR relies on authoritative publisher entitlements data with zero configuration effort for libraries.

GetFTR provides:

  • An API where entitlements from all participating publishers can be checked.
  • Direct, deep links to full text content, which take users directly to their institution sign-in screen where necessary
  • A simple, consistent user experience for discovery services to use on their sites and that researchers recognise
  • Links returned for open access, free and entitled subscription content, supporting ever greater dissemination of research to a global community

The GetFTR service is built on trusted technology and builds on existing industry standards such as DOIs and SAML.

Behind the scenes, the GetFTR API allows discovery tools to check user’s institutional entitlements in real time against publisher’s authoritative records.

Publisher’s then provide discovery services with GetFTR Smart links, which incorporate the well-established federated authentication method to provide the user with a streamlined pathway to research even when working off campus, whilst also supporting traditional IP authentication when on campus.

Unlike other solutions, GetFTR provides researchers with accurate, real-time entitlements information from participating publishers’ websites and rapid access to the trusted, publisher-approved source of information. GetFTR checks entitlements directly with the participating publisher at the DOI level, ensuring subscription content and often hard to reach open content in hybrid journals is easily accessible.

Researchers, and libraries, do not need to take any action to use GetFTR, beyond clicking the GetFTR link in discovery services and collaboration networks that have integrated with GetFTR.

GetFTR can be integrated free of charge into discovery tools, scholarly platforms and library management systems. There is no cost for libraries, institutions, researchers or integrating platforms. GetFTR is sustained through financial contributions from participating publishers on a tiered structure, which you can read about here.

Our tiered structure is designed to align price with the value that publishers receive from GetFTR. We have recently introduced a “free tier”to support smaller publishers. Details can be found on our price list.

GetFTR is currently being used by a number of publishers, scholarly platforms and discovery tools who have integrated GetFTR. See our Partners page for a current list.

With every new partner, we’re refining the GetFTR service, making it even better for users. We’re always welcoming new partners, so please register your interest for the latest updates or to start a discussion with our team.

No sensitive, personal information is passed to GetFTR, and no information about the user’s search terms is revealed.

GetFTR receives DOIs, end user IP addresses and information that uniquely identifies the user’s institution. GetFTR uses this information to pass requests to publishers for entitlement checks.

GetFTR does not, and will not, track individual users or analyze data at the individual user level, and does not and will not make user-level data available to any third party. In addition, it requires participating publishers to commit to not tracking users with the information received from GetFTR or combining this with other data they may have.

GetFTR has no visibility to what links a user clicks in a discovery service; when clicking on GetFTR links, the user goes directly to the publisher’s website and is redirected to the user’s home institution for authentication. GetFTR is not involved in article retrieval in any way.

We provide you with access to your self service portal, which enables you to securely access your credentials for GetFTR, personalised dashboards to monitor the service, technical FAQs to support your implementation, conduct integration tests, and options to test the GetFTR API, its responses, and error codes.

You have access to the demo website, a lightweight discovery service, where you can explore the GetFTR UX.

We can set you up on Slack so that our technical team can answer any integration questions you might have.

If you’ve got questions on any of these options our team is on hand to help at support@getfulltextresearch.com.

We have an active advisory board who meet every other month and provide valuable feedback from across the research community, helping shape the development of GetFTR from announcement to pilot to full launch and beyond.

Publishers have to handle lots of queries and complaints from librarians and users about getting access to subscription content, especially for users working off campus. As a consequence, their users increasingly turn to alternate versions, illicit sources, or research that is not accurately linked to data/research resources. With GetFTR, publishers can put their readers first, improving user experience through the streamlined access to high quality, published research, connected to the original data sources, whether subscription or open access. See here for all benefits.

GetFTR smart links provide direct access to full-text content, with format (PDF, HTML and/or ePub) determined by the publisher.

The smart links enable users to gain direct access to content provided by their institutions without having to navigate the publisher’s sign-in or Where Are Your From (WAYF) pages.

Yes – GetFTR indicators will appear for Open Access and free to view content on participating websites for all users, regardless of their institution.

The GetFTR service fully integrates into discovery tools and scholarly collaboration networks, enabling researchers to easily see what content is available to them, via a GetFTR indicator, from within those environments. GetFTR smart links then provide users with streamlined access to research on participating publishers’ websites.

Unlike other features and tools that are trying to solve this problem, GetFTR provides researchers with accurate, real-time entitlement information from participating publishers’ websites and a seamless pathway to the trusted source of information which works for all subscribing institutions by default. GetFTR can be used on devices both on- and off-campus, from any browser, without the need for additional software, removing technological restrictions that limit the effectiveness of other solutions.

There should be no impact on the response times of content records. However, the GetFTR indicator button can take up to 1 second to load so we recommend adding links after the search result or article page has been displayed. For search results and references we recommend only sending entitlement requests to GetFTR for content on view.

GetFTR is not currently integrated with these solutions, however, we believe GetFTR can successfully co-exist with these services and provide a base level of access that just works without the need for institution-specific configuration. We’d love to hear your ideas on how these services can benefit from GetFTR. If you’d like to get involved, please register your interest here.

Federated authentication, sometimes referred to as ‘Single sign on’, ‘Shibboleth and OpenAthens’ or ‘SAML-based authentication’, is an authentication method in which the user indicates which institution they are from and then uses their institutional credentials to sign in.

Discovery tools and scholarly platforms can also leverage the work being done by SeamlessAccess.org to ease the user journey through the federated authentication process by introducing a consistent authentication experience across websites.

No, as an integrator you can use Deferred Authentication rather than SeamlessAccess (RA21) or Federated Authentication. You will need to implement an institutional lookup and selection widget, enabling users to select their institution as you need to provide GetFTR with an institution identifier, when making calls to the GetFTR service. You can also send the user’s IP address, and in both cases the publisher will authenticate the user when they access the content.

Librarians handle lots of queries (and complaints) from users about getting access to library collections, especially when working off campus. They see users increasingly turn to less trustworthy versions or illicit methods to gain access to the content they need. Coupled with this, librarians face the challenge of having to constantly know how different publishers’ authentication works, and in turn are burdened with the responsibility of educating their users on these various systems and processes. In some cases, they are also tasked with manually entering entitlement data into discovery systems, absorbing time, library budgets and potentially putting their institutions at risk.

GetFTR helps solve these challenges by eliminating the need to enter entitlement data manually, removing the need to continually educate user communities on how to gain access to library content and to understand the numerous ways publishers’ authentication processes work.

No, not yet. However, we are actively exploring how this use case could be supported in the future. Discovery services are free to use GetFTR alongside link resolvers or other methods of accessing the full text.

Researchers use a variety of search engines, databases, scholarly collaboration networks, discovery platforms, and library portals to find published research relevant to their areas of interest. They feel confused by multiple links,, experience frustration and waste time browsing results and clicking through to publisher websites, not knowing if they will have access to the research. This experience drives many researchers to alternative online sources that may be out of date,, may distribute research illicitly, and may lack useful supporting materials (such as data) to aid them in their work. GetFTR solves this problem.

When viewing content pages or search results on a discovery tool or scholarly collaboration platform, researchers can easily tell which full text their institution has made available to them via the GetFTR indicator. They can then follow the smart links provided by GetFTR to rapidly access that content on publisher websites.

For users who do not have access based upon their institutional affiliation, participating publishers can choose to provide access to an alternative version of the content, which will go beyond the abstract, enabling the user to better understand the nature of the material (e.g. a preprint).