OpenAthens
{{Short description|Identity management service}}
{{use dmy dates|date=July 2020}}
{{primary sources|date=October 2021}}
OpenAthens is an identity and access management service, supplied by Jisc, a British not-for-profit information technology services company.
Identity provider (IdP) organisations can keep usernames in the cloud, locally or both. Integration with ADFS, LDAP or SAML is supported.{{Cite web|url=http://www.openathens.org/saml/|title=SAML and interoperability |date=2016-03-17 |website=OpenAthens|language=en-GB|access-date=2016-05-23}}
OpenAthens for Publishers{{Cite web|url=http://www.openathens.org/for-publishers/ |title=OpenAthens for publishers|website=www.eduserv.org.uk|access-date=2016-01-22}} software for service providers supports multiple platforms and federations.
Technically, the service provides deep packet inspection proxying (in a similar manner to EZproxy) and SAML-based federation,{{cite web | url=https://www.openathens.net/librarians/i-am-using-a-proxy-why-do-i-need-openathens/ | title=I am using a proxy, why do I need OpenAthens? }} as well as various on-boarding services for institutions, consortia and vendors.
History
With its origins in a University of Bath initiative to reduce IT procurement costs for itself and other universities, the Athens project was conceived in 1996. Spun off from Bath University through the vehicle of charitable status, Eduserv was established as a not-for-profit organisation in 1999.{{Cite web |last=Clawson |first=Trevor |title=The Sweet Spot -- Finding A Route To UK Public Sector Sales |url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevorclawson/2014/03/31/finding-the-sweet-spot-finding-a-route-to-uk-public-sector-sales/ |access-date=2023-10-11 |website=Forbes |language=en}}
The service was originally named Athena after the Greek goddess of knowledge and learning; it is rumoured that the name change was partially caused by a common typo, but it was actually due to the name Athena being already trademarked (EU000204735).{{Cite web |title=EU000204735 |url = https://www.ipo.gov.uk/tmcase/Results/4/EU000204735 |website=ipo.gov.uk |access-date=2016-01-25 |publisher=Intellectual Property Office}} It launched as 'Athens' in 1997 (UK00002153200).{{Cite web|title=UK00002153200 |url=https://www.ipo.gov.uk/tmcase/Results/1/UK00002153200 |website=ipo.gov.uk |access-date=2016-01-25 |publisher=Intellectual Property Office}} After JISC decided to support Shibboleth rather than Athens in 2008, Eduserv launched a federated version of Athens as 'OpenAthens'{{cite book |last1=Upshall |first1=Michael |title=Content Licensing: Buying and Selling Digital Resources |date=2009 |publisher=Chandos |isbn=9781843343332 |page=102 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XQ6pAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA102 |access-date=24 October 2021}} (EU013713821).{{Cite web |title=EU013713821 |url=https://www.ipo.gov.uk/tmcase/Results/4/EU013713821 |website=ipo.gov.uk |access-date=2016-01-25 |publisher=Intellectual Property Office}}
See also
References
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