UK Access Management Federation launched

The rapid growth in the number of schools with broadband connections over
the past few years, and the development of the National Education Network
has led to a large amount of content being made available to learners and
teachers. However, with this success comes the burden of having to remember
multiple usernames and passwords and the duplication of information being
stored by numerous companies and organisations.

The need for more secure and simplified access to e-resources of all kinds,
the support of complex e-learning and e-research collaborations and the
need to allow institutions to take greater control over access to resources
have led Jisc and Becta to devote significant funds to investigate and
implement new technologies. Central to these developments is the UK Access
Management Federation.

The Federation, to be operated by UKERNA on behalf of Jisc and
Becta (using the system developed and maintained by SDSS at
Jisc's National Data Centre Edina), is made up of 'identity
providers', such as Local Authorities (LAs), Regional Broadband
Consortia (RBC), universities and colleges, and 'service
providers', such as publishers of online resources. Federated access
management establishes a way of exchanging information between individuals
and providers of digital resources, which protects the security of both the
individual and the resource concerned. LAs, RBCs, universities and colleges
are being invited to join the federation, which will bring the UK education
and research sectors a step closer to achieving single sign-on to network
and online resources."The UK Access
Management Federation is a significant development which will enable a much
greater degree of security and granularity of service."

Collaboration between Jisc and Becta is ensuring a consistent approach to
access management throughout UK education, from schools through FE, HE and
research sectors. In addition, federated access management is emerging as
an international standard and the UK federation is likely to be the largest
of its kind so far.

Paul Shoesmith, Assistant Director, Technical Policy and Standards at
Becta, said "The UK Access Management Federation provides a wealth of
opportunities and benefits to pupils, teachers and administrators in
providing simple and secure access to online resources. Shibboleth has been
proven to meet the needs of learners and teachers while facilitating the
anytime and anywhere access to learning called for by the Government's
e-Strategy."

John Robinson, Jisc Services Operations Director, added: "The current
access management service offered by Jisc - Athens - requires colleges and
universities to outsource the process of authenticating and authorising
their users for access to on-line resources. The new service enables
institutions to bring these functions back in-house, to take full
responsibility for authenticating their members and asserting their
entitlements to a variety of resources within a federation of mutual trust
and support.

"The UK Access Management Federation is therefore a significant
development which will enable a much greater degree of security and
granularity of service. It will also offer a number of new opportunities
for federation members to use the technology to manage access to their own
resources as well as those from external service providers".

The Athens service will not cease, but will move from its current
fully-funded status as a Jisc Service to a subscription-based service after
July 2008. The Jisc has established a transition programme with clear
choices to minimise disruption to institutions and to their students and
staff -- including the choice to continue using Athens.

For further information please go to:

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/uk-federation/