Upcoming Events

On 15 July 2021, the STM Association will be hosting a free webinar on “Web browsers, privacy, and your publishing platform webinar.” In this session, we’ll discuss the changes browser vendors are making to prevent ad networks from tracking users without notice.

SeamlessAccess and Browser Changes

Above, we mentioned the webinar scheduled for 15 July 2021. The changes on the browser roadmap are particularly important to organizations that support controlled access to online resources. The changes on the roadmap for all browsers, while important for privacy, are also impacting browser features used to support federated authentication and even IP address authorization. SeamlessAccess is watching this space closely and will provide regular updates and recommendations to our community so we can adapt to whatever changes are implemented by the browser vendors.

Read more about this in our recent blog post: Web browsers, privacy, and federated identity

The SeamlessAccess Product Roadmap

Work on SeamlessAccess is an ever-evolving set of activities. Over the next few months, we expect several features to be released, including progressive scrolling on the Standard IdP discovery page and various internationalization improvements. Much of our planning and development work is focused on improving how we signal to a user that a given IdP is more or less likely to work with a given service provider. The roadmap is now available on our website and will be updated regularly.

Staff Change

As of July 1st, Hylke Koers has taken over the baton from Heather Flanagan as SeamlessAccess’ Program Director. Hylke recently joined the STM Association as CIO for it’s new STM Solutions initiative, which has access as one of its priorities. Hylke is excited to be part of SeamlessAccess and looks forward to working with the SeamlessAccess community and helping shape its future direction.

Heather Flanagan will continue to stay involved as Technical Liaison, working on an optimal coordination and collaboration between SeamlessAccess and relevant other community groups as well as contributing to the more technically-focused Working Groups.

Eefke Smit, Director S&T of STM and one of the long-term sponsors of SeamlessAccess, says:

“Heather came as a gift from heaven to the project – a woman with exactly the right expertise, the right network and a well-fitting skill set. She took a key role in developing it from RA21 (Resource Access in the 21st Century) into SeamlessAccess.org. This was now 5 years ago. The rest is history – our gratitude for her contributions live on. Her new role will be equally valuable for the future of the project, with SeamlessAccess now ready to go operational.”

SeamlessAccess.org is a service designed to help streamline the online access experience for researchers using scholarly collaboration tools, information resources, and shared research infrastructure. This service is 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, identity providers, and federation operators. We’re excited to bring you up to date on the latest news.