Privacy and cookies

The OpenAthens privacy policy is available at https://openathens.org/privacy

This page will cover the cookies and local storage used by the operational parts of the service.

Operational cookies and storage

OpenAthens uses various cookies and similar to maintain sessions and store preferences that are necessary for its operation. None of these contain personally identifiable information.

admin.openathens.net

Name	Function
oaadmin	maintains admin session
sp	Preference: fields for advanced search
cp	Preference: columns in list view

go.openathens.net

No storage is used

Name	Function
oaadsid	maintains admin account session
oatmpsid	maintains user account session
oa2fastate_*	multi-factor authentication state
oaselorg	the selected organisation
oacorg	last selected brokered connection
oalastorg	last used organisation
oasamlreqid	Used to store the SAML request ID
oasamlreqid	active saml request id
ssodebug	whether debug mode is enabled
oaorgmap	the saml connector chosen if you map to multiple organisations
oaxsrftkn	XSRF seed token for a user

my.openathens.net

Name	Function
oidcsess	used to establish user session
srsess	maintains user session

my-admin.openathens.net

Name	Function
oaadmin	maintains admin session

reports.openathens.net

Name

Function

oa-rui-sess

maintains admin session

ACCOUNTS_TOTALS_BREAKDOWN

AUTHENTICATIONS

RESOURCE_USAGE_BREAKDOWN

TOP_RESOURCES

etc...

selected options such as breakdown type or date range so that you don't have to continually re-select them

sp.openathens.net

Name	Function
cloudspid	maintains admin session
cloudsptoken	XSRF seed token

wayfinder.openathens.net

Name	Function
wfEntityIDs	entityIDs of previously selected organisation(s) so that you don't have to search each time

Service improvement

We also use some tools to monitor how the service is used so that we can improve it. None of these contain personally identifiable information.

Google Analytics

Our website uses Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc. ("Google"). The information generated by the cookie about your use of our website (including your IP address) will be transmitted to and stored by Google. Google will use this information for the purpose of evaluating your use of our website, compiling reports on website activity for website operators and providing other services relating to website activity and internet usage. Google may also transfer this information to third parties where required to do so by law, or where such third parties process the information on Google’s behalf. Further information about Google’s privacy policy may be obtained from http://www.google.com/privacy.html.

Hotjar

We use Hotjar in order to better understand our users’ needs and to optimise this service and experience. Hotjar is a technology service that helps us better understand our users’ experience (e.g. how much time they spend on which pages, which links they choose to click, what users do and don’t like, etc.) and this enables us to build and maintain our service with user feedback. Hotjar uses cookies and other technologies to collect data on our users’ behaviour and their devices. This includes a device's IP address (processed during your session and stored in a de-identified form), device screen size, device type (unique device identifiers), browser information, geographic location (country only), and the preferred language used to display our website. Hotjar stores this information on our behalf in a pseudonymised user profile. Hotjar is contractually forbidden to sell any of the data collected on our behalf. For further details, please see the ‘about Hotjar’ section of Hotjar’s support site.