News from the misty Albion: Shibboleth in the UK

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News from the misty Albion Shibboleth in the UK

• Masha Garibyan
• London School of Economics Library, England
• (With grateful acknowledgement to Terry Morrow,
  JISC)

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Why the United Kingdom?
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UK Activity

• UK development work funded by JISC
• Joint Information Systems Committee
• Government funded body multimillion budget
• Supports IT in UK post-16 education research
• Works with international partners eg
• Internet2
• Terena (Trans-European Research Education
  Networking Association)
• International Middleware Meeting, Upper Slaughter
  (England), Oct 2004, JISC-sponsored

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JISC

• Funding two major middleware initiatives
• 3-year technology development programme
• 2-year infrastructure programme

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Technology Development

• 3 years (2004 2007)
• 5.7m (3m) of government funding
• Funding 15 projects
• Wide range of middleware activities
• Development and evaluation of tools
• Institutional deployment
• Use of tools and policies
• Builds on earlier work also funded by JISC

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Infrastructure Programme

• 2 years (2004 2006)
• 6m (3.2m) of government funding
• Establishing a UK Shibboleth infrastructure
• Key work areas
• Making national data centre services Shibboleth
  compliant
• Funding for 16 universities willing to be early
  Shibboleth adopters
• Creating a dedicated support service for early
  adopters
• Liaising with suppliers (publishers, subscription
  agents etc)
• Establishing a national UK Shib federation

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Middleware Assisted Take-Up Service (MATU)

• Providing support to the JISC-funded early
  adopters
• Scoping future requirements for institutions
  adopting Shibboleth
• Support services include
• Comprehensive website
• Documentation
• Help desk
• Onsite support
• Training events
• Links to and information about Shibboleth

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So, in the future it might look like this
Not bad for a country that is slightly smaller
than Oregon ?
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London School of Economics (LSE) Library
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LSE Library

• Part of the London School of Economics
  Political Science
• Also known as the British Library of Political
  and Economic Science
• The largest library in the world devoted
  exclusively to the social sciences
• 11,000 registered external visitors (e.g. Bill
  Clinton) and (rich) alumni

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LSE Library projects

• Active participation in cutting edge information
  technology developments through internally and
  externally-funded projects (e.g. JISC)
• A track record of successful projects in access
  management (and other areas)
• LSE was the first institution in the UK to pilot
  the Shibboleth technology

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PERSEUS Project

• Portal-enabled Resources via Shibbolized End-user
  Security (PERSEUS) Project
• Part of the JISC Core Middleware Technology
  Development Programme
• PERSEUS aims to
• provide Shibboleth-based access management to
  information resources via an institutional portal
  (moving away from identity-based solutions)
• use LSE as a UK test bed for Shibboleth
• while being actively involved in other projects

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DART Project

• Digital Anthropology Resources for Teaching
  (DART) Project
• a collaboration between LSE and Columbia
  University, jointly funded by JISC and the US
  National Science Foundation (2003 2008)
• DART aims to
• develop digital teaching resources for
  undergraduate anthropology
• investigate opportunities for flexible
  resource-sharing between universities (using Shib)

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PERSEUS/ DART connection

• PERSEUS Team (with colleagues from Columbia)
  helped DART to facilitate Shibboleth-based
  resource-sharing between the two institutions
• So,
• No resource duplication
• Institutional IPR protection
• First ever use of Shibboleth to share teaching
  and library resources across continents

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It works like this

• Columbia University has developed a digital
  resource in Anthropology which it is sharing with
  LSE
• An LSE user uses one of these routes to access
  the resource
• WebCT (LSEs VLE)
• Columbia University website

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User is redirected to WAYF
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User selects home institution
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Request is processed
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Success!
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ShibboLEAP

• JISC Infrastructure Programme Early Adopters
• Consortium of 6 London HE colleges, led by LSE
• LEAP London E-prints Access Project
• Aims to create an authentication service for
  staff involved in managing content (e.g.
  academics, librarians) that doesnt require use
  of a (yet another) username/password supplied
  by Eprints.org server
• Create a Shib IdP service at each college
• Integrate the Eprints.org server making it a Shib
  target

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So whats next?

• Shib can be used in many different ways
• JISC has recently announced its plans to adopt
  Shibboleth as the main standards-based
  architecture for access management in the
  communities it serves.
• So, watch the space!

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Some links

• www.jisc.ac.uk/programme_middleware.html
• www.angel.ac.uk/PERSEUS/
• www.columbia.edu/dlc/dart/
• www.angel.ac.uk/ShibboLEAP/
• www.matu.ac.uk

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Contact details

• M.Garibyan_at_lse.ac.uk
• 44 (0)20 7852 3509
• www.angel.ac.uk/PERSEUS
• Any questions?