Outreach Survey

A report on the results of the recent surveys of academic IT and library staff to better understand the issues around the implementation of federated authentication is now available: https://seamlessaccess.org/survey-finds-room-for-improvement-in-communications-between-it-library-staff

ORCID

SeamlessAccess recently announced the extension of its beta phase at least through the end of this calendar year. ORCID, one of the founding partners of the SeamlessAccess coalition, is currently focusing its efforts on improving core services and adding value to its stakeholders whilst it is in the process of seeking a new Executive Director to lead the next stage of the organization’s development. As a result, ORCID has decided not to participate in the SeamlessAccess coalition during the extension. The other founding partners, GÉANT, Internet2, NISO, and STM have renewed their commitment and continue to support and extend the service during the beta period. ORCID wishes SeamlessAccess continued success and will be following the results of the beta with interest.

Consultation Period

The Entity Categories and Attribute Bundles Working Group has concluded its work and submitted its proposed specifications to REFEDS. These specifications exist to provide common language for Identity Providers and Service Providers to use when describing exactly what information should be released (if any) to enable access to online materials.

A blog post is available that offers links to the consultation process and the registration page for a NISO webinar on August 10, 2020, where we will discuss these entity categories in more detail. See: https://seamlessaccess.org/public-comments-now-open-for-new-federated-identity-entity-categories

#Community Engagement With the work of the Entity Categories and Attribute Bundles Working Group now in the hands of the broader community, it is time to spin up a new working group that defines and promotes language that may be used in subscriber contracts with provisions for federated access. Contact Jason Griffey for more information!

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.