Athens

Building Communities

Ed Zedlewski & Lyn Norris

UKSG, Warwick, April 2002

Outline

• Athens today

• Access Management Systems & communities

• New developments

Athens today

• Delivers user:

– Authentication

– Authorisation

– Administration and audit

• De facto standard

– In use throughout HE/FE

– Active roll out across NHS

• User profiling, bulk registration and SSO

Usage

• 1.8m users in HE/FE

– All HE institutions

– 200+ FE colleges

– 50 DSP’s delivering over 200 online services

• Parallel service for NHS sector

– 200+ NHS trusts

Statistics

• 150+ daily bulk uploads

• Average 40+ subscribers per resource

• Over 4 years of non-stop authentication service

Forthcoming DSP’s

• Elsevier – ScienceDirect

• Wiley

• Swets

• Census data

• New DSP’s every week

Athens SSO

• What is SSO and how is it different from Athens?

– Login once – get access to all authorised services

– Requires latest v3.5 Athens agent

• Most DSP’s have either implemented SSO Agent or plan to implement during 2002

How does SSO work?

The need for communities

• UK Government desires a break down of the boundaries in education

• Greater efficiency of service delivery

• Greater integration with campus services

Communities

• Communities have common needs

– Users need a common support infrastructure

– DSP’s need common delivery systems

– Education, health, library communities need to interact

• Athens is middleware that:

– Facilitates accessibility

– Draws users together

User communities

• Libraries need to deliver services to users

– On and off campus

– Distance learners

• Face new challenges of delivering integrated courseware systems and MLE’s

• Integration with student registration and enrolment, MIS and back office systems

User communities …

• Access to external services and content

• Increasing interaction between organisations

– Collaborative projects/services

– Greater student mobility

• All these services need common middleware

• Common community-wide user identities

Data Service Providers (DSP)

• Need to deliver cost effective products through:– Access to well defined subscriber communities– Common infrastructure for service delivery– Users identified in a consistent manner, delivering:

• Reduced maintenance costs• Ease of product marketing and support

• Ever increasing delivery of personalised services• Support for transactional services

• Pay per view• User personalised services

What is the role of an AMS

• User management and profiling services

• Session and concurrency management

• Support for distributed user authentication

• Access tools/API’s to enable integration of the full range of back office systems

New developments in Athens

• AthensDA (Devolved Authentication)

• Improved user management

• Improved service management for DSP’s

• Certificate based authentication

• Integrated e-business services

LocalComputingLibrary

System

PersonnelStudent Registry

Institution

Athens DatabaseDirectory

User Browser DSP service

Athens Authentication Point

LocalComputingLibrary

System

PersonnelStudent Registry

Institution

Athens DatabaseDirectory

User Browser DSP service

Athens Authentication Point

LocalComputingLibrary

System

PersonnelStudent Registry

Institution

Athens DatabaseDirectory

Certificate Authority

Commercial PortalsCommercial PortalsFor example:For example:

YahooYahooContent sitesContent sites

PortalsPortalsFor example:For example:

MLE’sMLE’sMyAthensMyAthens

ApplicationsApplicationsFor example:For example:

Web browserWeb browser

..

Front OfficeFront Office

Middle OfficeMiddle Office

MiddlewareMiddleware

InternetInternet

TransactionTransactionEngineEngine

Payments:Payments:Credit CardCredit Card

Pre-payPre-pay..

Back OfficeBack Office

Internet or IntranetInternet or Intranet

MISMIS

dbdb

StudentStudent

dbdb

registrationregistrationLibraryLibrary

dbdb

DSPDSP

Content servicesContent services & Portals& Portals

RegistrationRegistrationand Enrolmentand Enrolment

DataData

Secure MailSecure Mail

PolicyPolicyEngineEngine Pay per viewPay per view

The future

• For UK education Athens will develop in line with JISC needs

• International interest continues to grow

• Athens is developing new services inline with International standards

Athens contacts

• Email:

dsp@athens.org.uk

Helpdesk@athensams.net

• Web:

www.athensams.net

• Tel:

+44 (0)1225 474333

Any questions?