Arguably more of an administrative than academic computing issue, this was still of interest to me, and I think to elearning systems developers, as I’d argue single-sign-on is one aspect of giving users a better alround experience (presumably leaving their mind more free to actually learn).
This is a U.k.-based Access Management system that provides “secure single username access to multiple web-based access controlled services” with “devolved administration facilities at the organisation level.” Most of us can only look on in envy at the situation (politically at least) in U.K. higher education. In Canada, education is the jurisdiction of the provinces, but even within provinces institutions typically function somewhat autonomously. And The U.S., well fugedabowdit! Private, public, 2 year, 4 year; no wonder such schemes as this just aren’t even considered, and instead something like Shibboleth needs to happen.
Still, there’s likely some things to learn from here, and it seems difficult not to admire their list of protected resources. I expect there’s a British reader out there who might be able to shed more light on this, but single sign-on has been of growing interest to me in the project I am working on, so I thought I’d post on it, regardless of my lack of familiarity with it. – SWL
I used my Athens registration extensively as a post-grad student at York University. FE/sixth-form institutions (16-18) all have free access to their service as well – although we haven’t been using it at my workplace (probably not many places outside of the HE sector do). One of my current mini-projects is to get my head around the administration of Athens (sadly enough I have the manual with me right now) – so I’ll be happy to contribute an update as soon as I do. The reason I’m looking into it is exactly the single sign on – although the Athens username & passwords are typically unwieldy (and can’t be changed by users, our students already have a heap of different account details to remember. Resetting passwords is consistently one of the most time consuming jobs our techies have to do at the moment.
The list of protected resources are primarily those for which there are deals for UK higher and further education – Athens access normally being a requirement of such deals. If Josie’s institution doesn’t use it, then its probably because it doesn’t subscribe to any of the resources.
Athens has only recently implemented single sign on for all its resources, so now once you have signed on to one, you can access others without logging in again.
However, in the UK not all resources come under Athens. When last I checked we have about 60 password sets for other resources.
Athens can be used in a local implementation, but I don’t think there are many such applications.
By the way – you can change Athens passwords.