Access and identity management
From Digipedia
Contents |
OVERVIEW
Access and identity management is undertaken where users, as members of an organisation, have an entitlement to use protected or subscription-based online resources. It is the task of the organisation to ensure that authorised people only have access to such resources and this is managed though access and identity authentication procedures and software.
Access and identity management in the UK education sector
With over 600 subscribers, a significant provider of access and identity management in the UK for schools, colleges and universities is the UK Access Management Federation for Education and Research. Funded by JISC, this organisation supports publishers of and subscribers to electronic resources and uses the Shibboleth software system for authentication and access. At the time of writing local authority users of online resources such as public library, local archive or museum users are not authenticated in a centralised manner.
How access and identity management works
The subscribing organisations of online content maintain details of their eligible users, along with any access rights related to their status within the parent organisation ( e.g. undergraduates may have lesser access rights than postgraduates, researchers or academic staff) or related to the nature and/or suitability of the content ( e.g film classification). The publisher maintains details of subscribing organisations and any restrictions on particular content. The access and identity management middleware provides a secure bridge between the two. Thus data is verified for authentication purposes but not exchanged between systems.
Related Digipedia articles
Authentication
Online learning
Further information
UK Access Management Federation for Education and Research
JISC Access Management Programme