Hi Cara
I am the Shibboleth administrator for our group, and can recommend it yes. Athens was a hassle with the account creations and having to annually renew them - now, as long as their network account is enabled, staff and students can use the same details they login to college computers and our VLE.
Some content providers insist on knowing if you're a member of staff or a student, so we had a Staff or Student flag put onto all network accounts - the shibboleth login server (also known as an Identity Provider) passes this flag onto service providers.
When we first setup our live Identity Provider (IdP - login server at your campus basically), we had it registered with our service providers (e.g. Dawsonera) as well as our old Athens profile - so you could use either for a year. Once we had all services setup on Shibboleth nicely, we asked providers to de-list our Athens access.
Setting up the IdP itself was a faff, and I had assistance with that - but set it up the right way, and you can make it easy for any UK Federation-registered services to use it.
We've gone one step further, and setup our Heritage OPAC catalogues to be a service provider - so staff and students can login to it, via shibboleth, and manage their renewals etc. Previously you needed your library membership number and a pin or postcode, which confused people and didn't always work.
That did take a couple of goes to get right, as Heritage's own documentation on the setup was incomplete - but another college published a case study of how they got it working which had the last bits I needed.
Hope that helps.
Dave
David Perry
eLearning Technologist, eLearning Team (L34 - Library)
Hull College Group
Wilberforce Drive, Queen's Gardens, Hull
HU1 3DG
Extension 2230 / Direct Dial 01482 381930
* * * Think about the environment - Do you really need to print this email?>>> Cara Clarke <[log in to unmask]> 03/01/2013 17:50 >>>
Hi folks, I'm wondering if anyeone can help me out please.
I work in a college library and we use Athens to authenticate off-site access to our subscription services. I know very little about it, but I believe Shibboleth offers the same service.
Does anyone have experience of moving from Athens to Shibboleth? Is it worthwhile?
Any hints and tips would be much appreciated.
Thanks,
Cara.
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