SeamlessAccess is a service designed to help streamline the online access experience for researchers using scholarly collaboration tools, information resources, and shared research infrastructure. The last two months had quite a bit of work happening behind the scenes, and we’re excited about bringing you up to date on the latest activities within SeamlessAccess.

Welcome, Wiley Online Library

Wiley Online Library, through their platform provider Atypon, is the newest implementer of SeamlessAccess. You can see their implementation by clicking on “Read the full text” for any article.

For the full list of advanced and standard implementers, see our Service Provider page.

SeamlessAccess Code Updates

Over the last few weeks, SeamlessAccess has improved our core search function to support internationalized searches. Also the most recent release for the Identity Provider (IdP) Discovery Service includes a checkbox that allows users to choose not to have SeamlessAccess store their selected IdP in their web browser.

Webinar Links

The International Association of STM Publishers offered a webinar on SeamlessAccess and GetFTR: slides are available at https://www.stm-assoc.org/events/implementing-seamless-access-and-getftr-a-free-webinar-from-stm-and-atypon/ and the recording can be found here; the passcode is: W1Nm*1cA The Springer Nature Summit, “The State of SeamlessAccess,” included a keynote by Jason Griffey (NISO) as well as a panel discussion with Laird Barrett (SpringerNature), Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe (University of Illinois – Urbana Champaign), Linda Van Keuren (Georgetown University Medical Center), and Heather Flanagan (SeamlessAccess). The recording is available online (free registration required): https://register.gotowebinar.com/recording/1844935841431907341?sap-outbound-id=1019B1E80F53147016374421B51AA68614D665F7

Status – Entity Categories

The work to establish new entity categories, initially proposed by the SeamlessAccess Entity Categories and Attribute Bundles Working Group, is currently in review by the REFEDS Schema Editorial Board, maintainers of federation-level entity categories.

What is an entity category?

“Entity Categories group federation entities that share common criteria. The intent is that all entities in a given entity category are obliged to conform to the characteristics set out in the definition of that category.

While Entity Categories have multiple potential uses, they were initially conceived as a way to facilitate IdP decisions to release a defined set of attributes to SPs without the need for detailed local review for each SP. The decision by the IdP would instead be based on the criteria detailed in each SP entity category specification. Categories were also conceived for IdPs to indicate support for the SP categories; SPs would use this information to tailor discovery and other aspects of the user experience.” – REFEDS Entity Categories home page

More information on the proposed entity categories can be found on our blog post: https://seamlessaccess.org/public-comments-now-open-for-new-federated-identity-entity-categories

#Community Engagement The Contract Language Working Group is continuing its efforts to define and promote language that may be used in contracts that include provisions for Federated Access. While the group is working through existing examples, finding those examples has proven challenging. There is a great deal of improvement to be offered in this space! The working group expects its work will continue through the end of the year, with a public report to be developed in Q1 2021.

#Monitoring the Services The availability of the SeamlessAccess services is publicly viewable at https://status.seamlessaccess.org. You can sign up for alerts for outages or to be notified when software updates are made to the services.

SeamlessAccess.org is a service, governed as a coalition between four organizations: GÉANT, Internet2, the National Information Standards Organization (NISO), and the International Association of STM Publishers. Participants include researchers, service providers, libraries and identity providers and federation operators, vendors, publishers.