Hello All
JISC is in the process of drafting a letter to send to all publishers with
clear timescales for conversion. A similar one will go out to all HE
institutions. The timescale for this is the end of November.
If we have a definite list of the key problem resources I am happy to write
a stronger letter to them, and to highlight these as people to chase up
asap.
Some key questions might be:
1. Why have these resource providers not implemented the feature? Cost?
Lack of understanding? Inertia?
2. Is there a technical solution to the current cookie problem when using
both the gateway and classic Athens?
3. Can we cope with this problem for a short amount of time (assuming that
the resource providers do implement eventually) or is this actually a
complete 'showstopper' meaning that no-one will use the gateway until
resolved?
I'd appreciate any opinions on this.
Kind regards
Nicole
-----Original Message-----
From: Discussion list for Shibboleth developments
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Paschoud,J
Sent: 28 October 2005 10:42
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Athens DA / Shibboleth gateway and classic Athens
Phil,
>The problems you refer to are all associated with non-gateway compliant
>services, so these do not diminish the usefulness of the gateway. With
>90% of Athens resources being gateway-compliant, we are working with the
>suppliers of the remaining services to get them to use a feature we
>released over two years ago! :o)
You misunderstand me! The problem (that we see as show-stopping to rolling
out live use of the Gateway to our users, who are only poor, non-technical
social scientists ;->) is with using a *combination* of Gateway-compliant
resources *and* the 10% that you say are not yet Gateway-compliant.
I appreciate your frustration with getting suppliers to adopt the 'new'
(2-year-old) features of Athens, so that they can work via the Gateway.
Where those resources are licensed by LSE we are very willing to throw our
weight, such as it is, behind that approach to them.
It would be useful if JISC (as primary client of the Athens service for UK
F&HE) could give those vendors clear information, soon, about the transition
to a Shibboleth-based infrastructure. Then they could make an informed
choice about either implementing the Athens Gateway-compliant software, or a
direct Shibboleth SP.
In the latter case, we would also encourage our non-UK friends to put
similar pressure on vendors. This shouldn't cause a problem for UK 'late
adopters' of Shibboleth, because (I presume) they would be able to use the
Athens-to-Shib element of the Gateway to continue providing Athens-mediated
access, for as long as they wished, or as long as that service was
available.
John
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