A slightly more positive message than the one I sent earlier this
evening. I originally planned to send them together, but felt it
was better to split them.
Over the last few weeks, I have been "invited" (ie told) to attend
various senior committees at the University, spreading the word on
the Federation and Shib. It seems to be working - there now appears
to be an awareness at senior level. Whether this will propagate
down to the general academic and student community remains to be
seen.
On the other hand, does it need to? Do "ordinary users" need to
know about shib, the federation and all that? They don't care - all
they want to do is to be able to log in and access resources.
At present, these resources are protected via Athens. Staff and
students understand the concept of an "athens password", and the
most common response I get when telling people about shib is "so
it's a new Athens?"
Now, we all know that's not the whole story, but to the end user,
it's probably good enough. "Athens" has become just like "Hoover"
- it's the generic name for remote access to library resources.
This is not new - 5 years ago, people talked about "BIDS Passwords"
in the same way - our library helpdesk still gets calls from people
asking for "BIDS passwords" when they mean Athens.
What we need to do NOW is to raise the awareness of Shib/Federation.
Get the users familiar with the terms, so that when Athens disappears
from some resources, they don't panic.
As an example, have a look at
http://edina.ac.uk/supportstaff/access_notes.html . These describe
routes of access to Edina-based services after 31 July. It's good
to see some clear statments here: 'The buttons to "Login via Athens"
will be removed from the following EDINA services:'
However, when you go to these pages, the "Login via Athens" button
is still right at the top of the page, with the Federation login
underneath, if visible at all. We have a user education issue here
- our users are familiar with the word "Athens", less so with
"Shibboleth" or "The UK Access Management Federation". (both of
which are unfortunately very unwieldy phrases!). We should be sending
out the message that for JISC-supported services, federated logins
are now the primary access route. The UKAMF federation button should
be at the TOP of the list, and the "legacy Athens" one below.
Does this make sense? Should we be ensuring that for JISC-supported
services during the transition period, the federation login should
be the "first" option?
Bruce.
--
Bruce Rodger [log in to unmask]
Network Manager, IT Services |http://www.strath.ac.uk/IT/People/bruce.html
The University of Strathclyde | +44 (0)141 548 3300
Glasgow G4 0LN, Scotland. | Fax 553 4100
"The University of Strathclyde is a charitable body, registered in
Scotland, number SC015263."
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