I'm not sure pressured is the entirely correct word but to maintain  
continuity of service one must go with OpenAthens. EZProxy was bandied  
around for a bit then dropped with the advice that institutions should  
do it themselves. However, with user personalisations of electronic  
resources to worry about, ezproxy is an unknown as the access method  
is being changed from Athens to IP. As we've already seen, changing  
the access method from AthensLA (Gateway) to UK Federation (although  
they both use Shibboleth) results in loss of user personalisations.  
Some suppliers are addressing this though. So to maintain the user  
experience for Athens based resources that are not federation  
compliant, OpenAthens is the only route available. So we have to pay  
for access to resources that were previously funded. Does that  
constitute being pressured?

As for who's in and who's not in the fed, I rely on the federation  
metadata. If a supplier isn''t in there, they're not in the fed, no  
matter what any other document states.

Nicole's right about the organisation, IT, librarians etc and that's  
what we're doing. Should non tech people know about shibboleth? IMHO  
no. It's just another way of accessing electronic resources. What's  
more important is the use of the institutional credentials to access  
those resources. That's what we're promoting. Documentation isn't  
helped by the weird and wonderful versions of WAYFs out there though.  
Some have WAYF-less URLs, some use the fed wayf, others have their own  
versions and most call it something different.

Alistair


On 7 May 2008, at 10:00, Andrew Anderson wrote:

> >> A number of institutions have indicated that they have felt  
> pressure
> >> from Eduserv to enter into deals by the end of May. Can we get the
> >> message out, that they should feel no requirement to rush into  
> signing
> >> up to anything prior to the July 31st funding cut off date.
>
> Since OpenAthens is being priced as a shared service and the final  
> price is based on how many institutions commit by the end of May,  
> institutions may well feel they should commit by then as doing so  
> would benefit not just them but the whole community if we can get  
> past a threshold. If any institutions do feel that they have been  
> inappropriately pressurised, please do let us know.
>
> Naturally we won't be turning anyone away after May 31st, however as  
> Nicole suggests: waiting till the end of July wouldn’t be pragmatic.
>
> Andy
>
> --
> AJ Anderson
> Eduserv
> [log in to unmask]
>
> tel: +44 (0)1225 474303
> fax: +44 (0)1225 474301
>
> http://www.eduserv.org.uk
>
> From: Discussion list for Shibboleth developments [mailto:[log in to unmask] 
> ] On Behalf Of Nicole Harris
> Sent: 07 May 2008 09:20
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: LA (Re: Progress towards the federated goal. Or otherwise.)
>
> Hi Bruce
>
> I will do my best to reply to your concerns.
>
> As we have mentioned several times, the definitive list of Service  
> Provider information is here: http://access.jiscinvolve.org/federated-access-and-publishers/ 
> .  We update this daily.  However, at the end of the day if a  
> publisher's timetable slips, the publishers timetable slips. As soon  
> as we are aware of this, we update the list.  We also recommend that  
> people sign-up to [log in to unmask] where  
> announcements about new services are made with full information  
> about how and what to do to sign up.
>
> In terms of signing up to Athens, you will effectively be signing a  
> contract for a service that is already in operation in your  
> organisation, so I don't see why a 6-8 week lead time would be  
> necessary.  Institutions already have to sign-up to the Athens Terms  
> and Conditions - it is just that this will now come accompanied by  
> an invoice.  Clearly you don't want to leave it until 31st July for  
> pragmatic purposes - Mark was merely responding to a message from  
> several institutions that they were feeling pressurised and saying  
> that they shouldn't ever feel pressurised by any supplier.  His  
> message is not particularly helpful here taken out of context.
>
> JISC has put significant effort in to working with publishers and  
> has definitely stepped up to the mark in taking responsibility for  
> primary negotiations.  We have one FTE who is purely dedicated to  
> working with publishers on this issue - and that is a significant  
> resource as JISC would not normally be able to shoulder an overhead  
> of this type.  JISC Collections has also played a significant role  
> and all new licenses ask for SAML compliance.  They also have daily  
> conversations with publishers and also put significant pressure on  
> for their services to be SAML compliant.   We take full  
> responsibility for this, but expect community support if this is  
> something you want to happen.
>
> Publishers do need to hear this directly from their customers and it  
> is necessary that institutions ask for SAML compliance as well.   
> This is not 'passing the buck', but just a necessary and pragmatic  
> step.  We have encouraged all libraries to take on this role and  
> Jane Charlton has provided a template of information that should be  
> included in messages to publishers.   We hope that all libraries are  
> engaged in this process.
>
> We have always been clear that this is not a 'techie' problem or a  
> library problem, but one that has to be worked on together.  The  
> first recommendation for institutions considering federated access  
> management has always been to form a working group of all the  
> relevant parties including technical staff, library staff and senior  
> management.
>
> I agree that the library role is significantly important at the  
> moment, and this is why we are running joint workshops with SCONUL  
> for librarians.  There is another SCONUL event next week.  I will be  
> giving a presentation describing the steps that JISC has had to go  
> through to set up its own directory service, IdP and set up access  
> to its own publisher and internal resources for federated access.   
> This will include pragmatic examples of library type activities that  
> we have undertaken like creating a wiki page called 'My Collections'  
> with embeddded WAYFless URLS to all our publisher resources, and how  
> we have tackled granularity issues as we do take out subscriptions  
> on a departmental basis.  I will circulate to the list as it sounds  
> like it will be useful to show a live example of what can be done.
>
> Let's not also forget the wider Service Provider development that  
> might fall outside of the library remit.  At the moment, we have a  
> programme of work internally to federate the JISC filestore, JISC  
> Wikis, JISC Involve and several JISC information systems.  This is  
> where some of the real benefits of federated access can be felt -  
> and it would be a pity to miss out on these.   I would expect these  
> type of services to be considered by the above mentioned working  
> group just a prominently as the third-party library resources.
>
> I hope this helps clarify.  Don't forget that my team is here to  
> help and answer questions whenever possible (although the team will  
> only be in place until December 2008 at the latest).  We are happy  
> to provide direct institutional advice as much as we can so please  
> ask!
>
> Best wishes
>
> Nicole
>
> ---------------
> JISC Executive
> JISC London office
> 1st Floor, Brettenham House South
> 5 Lancaster Place
> London WC2N 7EN
>
> tel: +44 (0)20 3006 6035
> mobile: +44 (0)7734 058308
> fax: +44 (0)20 7240 5377
>
>
> Bruce Rodger wrote:
> I've just come from an (internal) meeting on "our shibboleth
> position", with Library and IT people involved. It appears that we
> are all sharing the same frustrations. I feel obliged to write them  
> down.
>
> More importantly, I suspect that virtually every other University
> in the country is having similar meetings, with similarly depressing
> outcomes.
>
>
> This morning, I was forwarded a message from Mark Williams at JISC,  
> via the RSC.
>
> It says: (apologies for selective quoting - I'm endeavouring to keep  
> this message as short as possible. I do not believe I have quoted  
> out of context)
>
>
>
> A number of institutions have indicated that they have felt pressure
> from Eduserv to enter into deals by the end of May. Can we get the
> message out, that they should feel no requirement to rush into signing
> up to anything prior to the July 31st funding cut off date.
>
> While this is undoubtedly good advice in principle, I would be a
> little concerned about hanging back until the very last minute.
> It's only good advice if you are the only institution to take it!
> If a large number of institutions were to "sign up" on the very
> last day, who knows how long it would take Eduserv to process these
> applications. My experience is that software & services agreements
> of this type can easily take 6-8 weeks to put in place. If you were
> to "sign" on 31 July, would you still have service on 1st August?
>
>
> The status of publishers membership of the
> UK Federation and Shibboleth compliance is becoming clearer everyday
>
> Is it? It's certainly not becoming clearer to us! Even the list of
> suppliers compliance levels which we were given by JISC is confusing
> and contradictory.
>
> Is there a definitive public list of service providers who have (a)
> committed to be shib-compliant by midsummer and (b) who have
> categorically stated that they will not be compliant by this time?
> Note that this list is NOT the same as simply looking at the
> membership of UKfederation.
>
> This is an area where we should be sharing experiences.
>
> I get the feeling that there is still a certain amount of  
> brinksmanship
> going on - a game of "chicken", in which there will be no clear-cut
> winners or losers.
>
>
> So, at a practical level, how can we move matters forward? My own
> feeling is that for too long the community has regarded the "shib
> problem" as being largely a technical one. It's now clear that this
> isn't the case - the technology isn't a problem. The difficulties
> are procedural, commercial and political.
>
> To me, it appears that the concerted pressure that the community
> was supposed to be applying to individual suppliers to hasten their
> migration towards federated access just isn't happening. The word
> from JISC is for individual institutions - the customers - to apply
> such commercial pressure, but the feeling from the community is
> that JISC should be the ones doing the pushing. I don't know who is  
> right.
>
> But everyone seems to think that it's Someone Else's Job. Who is  
> taking responsibility?
>
>
> Does anyone have any comments on what I've said? Am I, and my
> colleagues, completely out of step? Or are you all as confused and
> concerned as us?
>
> At the end of the day, I'm not going to lose too much sleep over
> this - it's another of those "Someone Else's Problems". At first I
> thought my job was the difficult bit - delivering the tools (an
> IdP) which are necessary at our end. But it's now clear that that
> was the easy task; the real difficulties have just begun, and it's
> the library people, not IT, who will have the most difficult task
> over the coming months.
>
> 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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