Cookies

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Enable/disable cookies to improve experience.

Cookies to improve experience - enabled

To help improve this site we place small files, known as cookies, onto your computer. Some are essential for the site to work properly, others are to improve the experience you have.

You can stop this site using non-essential cookies by updating your settings using the toggle switch above to disable/enable.

You can also decide to stop this or any site from using any cookies. To learn more about cookies and how to manage them visit AboutCookies.org.

How we use cookies

We use cookies for several purposes on this website – we’ve listed each of them below with more details about why we use them and how long they’ll last.

Essential cookies

Website operation

The system that runs our website sets cookies to allow it to run smoothly.

Name Purpose Expires
PHPSESSID   when you close your browser
has_js This tells the site whether you're using JavaScript or not when you close your browser
visitedPreviously randomly generated number 60 days
ssess Allow the page to provide you with content  
adaptiveLibraryDefaultState Used to remember your display preferences  
jisc_eprivacy Used to remember your privacy preferences 90 days

Logged in access

Our system uses cookies to allow you to log into the site, and access restricted content and services.

Name Purpose Expires
PHPSESSID To store a the logged in user's username and a 128bit encrypted key. This information is required to allow a user to stay logged in to a web site without needing to submit their username and password for each page visited. Without this cookie, a user is unable to proceed to areas of the web site that require authenticated access. when you close your browser
loginCheck   when you close your browser
PHPSESSID

 

To store a user’s shopping basket when you close your browser
_saml_idp Allow our identity provider to recognise you six months after last visiting the site
_shibsession_<number> Allow the page to provide you with restricted content when you close your browser
sso_linked Used for linking a licence subscriptions manager local user account to an institution login. Will be set to 1 if, after authenticating, the ID returned from the IdP above was matched with a local account. If 1, shows "Login with previous IdP" button instead of asking for name / password. 3 weeks
authcache
drupal_user
drupal_uid

 

Used to improve the performance of the site for logged-in users when you close your browser

NB: Cookie guidance wording adapted from gov.uk, shared under the Open Government Licence.

Cookies to improve your experience

You can tell us to stop using these at any time by updating your settings above.

Measuring website usage (Google Analytics)

We use Google Analytics to collect information about how people use our site, and rough demographics as to what groups of people are using our site. We do this to make sure it’s meeting your needs and to understand how we could improve it. As well as controlling this above - you can opt out of Google Analytics tracking directly.

Google Analytics stores information about:

  • the pages you visit
  • how long you spend on each page
  • how you got to the site
  • what you click on while you're here

The following cookies are set by Google Analytics:

Name Purpose Expires
_ga This helps us count how many people visit the site by tracking if you've visited before 2 years
_utma Like _ga, this lets us know if you’ve visited before, so we can count how many of our visitors are new to the site or to a certain page 2 years
_utmb This works with _utmc to calculate the average length of time you spend on the site 30 minutes
_utmc This works with _utmb to calculate when you close your browser when you close your browser
_utmz This tells us how you reached the site (like from another website or a search engine) 6 months
_gat_UA-376728-1 This is used by Google Analytics to ensure its work doesn't have a big impact on the site's performance 1 day

 

Gathering feedback (Hotjar widget)

We use the Feedback widget (Hotjar) to enable in-context feedback easily and anonymously by default. The following cookies are set by Hotjar for this feature:

Name Purpose Expires
_hjTLDTest When the Hotjar script executes, Hotjar try to determine the most generic cookie path to use, instead of the page hostname. This is done so that cookies can be shared across subdomains (where applicable). To determine this, they try to store the _hjTLDTest cookie for different URL substring alternatives until it fails. After this check, the cookie is removed. when you close your browser
_hjLocalStorageTest This cookie is used to check if the Hotjar Tracking Script can use local storage. If it can, a value of 1 is set in this cookie. The data stored in_hjLocalStorageTest has no expiration time, but it is deleted almost immediately after it is created. < 100 ms (milliseconds)
_hjShownFeedbackMessage Hotjar cookie that is set when a visitor minimizes or completes Incoming Feedback. This is done so that the Incoming Feedback will load as minimized immediately if the visitor navigates to another page where it is set to show. 365 days
_hjid Hotjar cookie that is set when a visitor first lands on a page with the Hotjar script. It is used to persist the Hotjar User ID, unique to that site on the browser. This ensures that behaviour in subsequent visits to the same site will be attributed to the same user ID. 365 days
_hjIncludedInPageviewSample This cookie is set to let Hotjar know whether that visitor is included in the data sampling defined by our site's pageview limit. 30 minutes
_hjIncludedInSessionSample This cookie is set to let Hotjar know whether that visitor is included in the data sampling defined by our site's daily session limit. 30 minutes
_hjAbsoluteSessionInProgress This cookie is used to detect the first pageview session of a user. This is a True/False flag set by the cookie. 30 minutes

 

Footnotes

  • Please note, if you have used the site in the past these cookies may still be on your computer - but by disabling them in your settings we will no longer access them.