2017 Charleston Library Conference

Traditional approaches to identity and access management present challenges to users, librarians, and publishers. It is not uncommon for those with access to subscribed content to confront paywalls when outside their institutional IP domain. Frequently the user experience with IP access is not seamless due to workflow or location issues. Further, this anonymous form of authentication provides inadequate security, and limits the ability of librarians and publishers to understand patterns of usage and respond with greater customization. These issues not only impact paywalled content, but also delivery of greater customization around open access services.

Building on CNI’s Report on the Authentication and Authorization Survey conducted in 2016, the STM Association and NISO have been convening conversations focused on how to improve the user experience and provide a more seamless access experience to users, while also providing greater control and analytics over network activity.

This session will feature updates in this important area, and explore the issues of accessibility, privacy, and security being addressed through development of multi-stakeholder pilot projects. The goal of these pilots is to provide seamless access to the user regardless of where they are in terms of their search process, efforts to link to the content, or their location outside of the institutional network.

Three pilots in development will be showcased in a use-case framework:

P3 WAYF Pilot: showcases Where Are You From (WAYF) UI flows whilst preserving user privacy.

WAYF Cloud Pilot: seeks to validate the use of a cloud service to facilitate the exchange of information between publisher platforms for the purpose of Identity Provider discovery.

Corporate Pilot: seeks to demonstrate how use of (Pharma-Documentation-Ring) P-D-R companies’ corporate login credentials can be leveraged to provide the seamless access to scholarly resources.