News

The Challenges around Where-Are-You-From (WAYF) There are many ways to manage access to remote resources. From the use of IP addresses via VPN or proxy services to federated identity, the goal of enabling access to remote content is both easier and more complicated than ever before. A common element in federated access workflows is that, at some point in their journey, the user needs to select the institution they want to use to authorize their access.

Note: Going forward, we will be sending out this newsletter on a bimonthly schedule. Events Just before the summer period, SeamlessAccess was discussed in a number of events and conferences. In case you missed it, slides and recordings are available: “What’s new with SeamlessAccess?” webinar (May 24), hosted by the STM Association. A recording is available here. SeamlessAccess was one of the services discussed in the “Access and Assessment: Delivering Privacy Preserving Services” session at NASIG 2022 (June 7), a session that focused on protecting user privacy while delivering seamless user experiences.

Events We have several events coming up where you can learn more about SeamlessAccess and have an opportunity to interact with the team: “What’s new with SeamlessAccess?” webinar (May 24), hosted by the STM Association. Register here to learn more about SeamlessAccess, our roadmap, and experiences from Emerald Publishing, who have integrated SeamlessAccess onto their Emerald Insight platform last year. SeamlessAccess will be one of the services covered in the “Access and Assessment: Delivering Privacy Preserving Services” session at NASIG 2022 (June 7).

Maintenance April 19 Note: updated date! SeamlessAccess has scheduled maintenance on: April 19, 2022 8:00AM - 12:00PM UTC We have booked a four-hour maintenance window to upgrade SeamlessAccess to version 1.6.2. We expect that end-users will not experience any interruptions during this maintenance window, however it is possible that there may be some caching issues. Please refer to the SeamlessAccess status page for more details: https://status.seamlessaccess.org/ Update: Maintenance was succesfully completed

Maintenance SeamlessAccess has planned maintenance on: March 29, 2022 8:00AM - 12:00PM UTC We have booked a four-hour maintenance window to move the front-end service from GitHub Pages to a new infrastructure. The team will try to make sure that end-users won’t experience any issues during the maintenance, however it is possible that, at moments during this time window, the service is temporarily unavailable. Please refer to the SeamlessAccess status page for more details: https://status.

Model License Agreement Call for Comments We are pleased to announce the second output from the Contract Language Working Group, whose job it is to build on the Entity Category work to produce a toolkit for use in contracts between libraries and service providers (and for service providers to have as a reference for library requirements). This group is working to develop a toolkit that can be used to update contracts and documentation to help libraries and providers choose the appropriate entity category for the resource and outcomes they desire.

Events With travel and conferences resuming, here are some opportunities to meet us in person: Council of Science Editors meeting, May 1-3 in Phoenix, AZ Society for Scholarly Publishing, June 1-3 in Chicago. Drop a line if you’re planning to attend these events. We would be delighted to meet up! ALA committee on Federated Authentication Core, a division of the American Library Association, has created a new Federated Authentication Committee that will focus the library community’s efforts in understanding, evaluating, and implementing federated authentication as an access mechanism for library resources.

Events SeamlessAccess was included in two webinars back in December: 8 Dec: STM Solutions Seminar, featuring a presentation by Matthew Keen (IOP Publishing) on SeamlessAccess 14 Dec: Atypon webinar, featuring Heather Staines talking about SeamlessAccess (amongst other topics) Looking ahead, the SeamlessAccess team is planning a new integrator workshop as well as continuing our series of SeamlessAccess for scholarly publishers - stay tuned! REFEDS Entity Categories The REFEDS community is currently working through existing Entity Categories, two of which having been originally proposed by the SeamlessAccess Entity Category Working Group, to bring them up to the necessary precision for this type of specification.

SeamlessAccess is looking for a Lead UX designer and strategist Seamless Access is looking for a strategically minded senior UX practitioner to join our team! Are you interested in taking a lead role to provide design guidance and help SeamlessAccess deliver a streamlined access experience for researchers around the globe? Check out the job description on our vacancies page.

Extending the benefits of SeamlessAccess to a new audience SeamlessAccess hit an important milestone recently with the addition of our most recent service provider, The HistoryMakers. While over the last years we’ve seen growing traction with global publishers of science, technical and medical content, the benefits of more seamless access are just as relevant and important to the broader community. The HistoryMakers is a non-profit research and educational institution committed to preserving and making widely accessible the untold personal stories of both well-known and unsung African Americans.