8 : Supporting the remote user of licenced resources

[authentication methods, user support]

Licences

The book mentions licenced resources but says little about licences themselves. UK higher education access to electronic resources benefits from some national licences that make provision for remote users. CHEST has been negotiating for software and, later, datasets for many years and their standard licence notes that 'the product may be used by any employee, student or other persons authorised by the Licensee for the purposes of the normal business of the Licensee's organisation, whether or not they are located on the Licensee's premises'. They are also careful to define types of user, including distance learners and to consider remote access, both in the UK and overseas. The NESLI Model Licence for electronic journals similarly clarifies who are authorised users and where they may access from.

Authentication

Dealing with the huge number of passwords needed for electronic resources is daunting for students. Fortunately many electronic resources available in the UK for higher and further education and the health service are authenticated using the Athens access management system, so reducing the number of different passwords needed. An Athens username/password gives on or off-campus access to whichever resources are subscribed to by an organisation from the large range that is available. Athens authentication is normally required for anything available from national deals by CHEST, etc and an increasing number of other services are moving to Athens too. Currently there are something like 1.5 million registered Athens users.

JISC funds the Athens service and has set out a specification for the next generation of authentication service, codenamed Sparta. The Athens service is being developed under the project name Rome to meet these requirements, as is the authentication module within the ANGEL project. ANGEL is creating other middleware services to integrate library resources into VLEs, such as metadata control, cross searching and current awareness alerts. ANGEL's Technology Watch gives information on other authentication developments worldwide.

Brock discusses remote access processes at South Bank University, which include an in-house proxy server solution called Icache. This requires changes to browser proxy settings, which may not be possible if students require access from their workplace. Password lists are also made available in an IP restricted Web page. Such a method, or passworded access to a file, such as in a Microsoft Outlook public folder, is common to allow users to discover passwords without having to contact their library.

Reference

Brock, S. & Justice S. Off-campus access: a case study of South Bank University Vine (123) 2001, 23-27