We have been running Eduserv’s LA 2.0 as our IDP for over six months now, taking us from the BETA product right through to the full release. The project did begin very slowly, mainly down to fact that we were all so new to the world of identity management, having used OpenAthens MD/IP authentication since the beginning of time.

I am impressed at how easy LA 2.0 has been to set-up and maintain. Our computing services department install all of the regular updates now, whilst I log-in to the admin console when needed to configure attributes and settings.  Our Active Directory did have to be cleaned up however, making sure that leavers are removed quickly and that LA can differenciate between staff/students/affiliates.

Once these issues were ironed out, OCLC’s GEOBASE was the only database which required LA to send out a specific affiliated attribute to be sent out, taking just minutes to set-up. Otherwise the default release of attributes was set-up at the very beginning and has not been touched since. The system just works.

For a full (colour coded) list of electronic resources that work with LA 2.0, visit here.

The main difficulties I did experience were with service providers, who were not aware of LA. I instead began to refer to our IDP as Shibboleth, to cut down the amount of confusion when providers referred to the fact that we already had Athens authentication set-up.

After registering our ‘Live’ install of LA with the Federation, the real hard work begins. We have chosen April 5th as the official changeover date when the Library removes all mention of Athens, instead forcing (where we can) students and staff to log-in via our new single sign-on service. This has involved regular all staff/student emails, blog updates, as well a published panel on the ‘MyAthens’ page warning of the changeover. There will also be some work during the summer to provide better ways in which students discover our resources.

It is seen that the change will have limited implications for our users, however Refworks users will have to migrate their data between accounts. In order to cope with this I have emailed all Refworks users, sending them directly to a video tutorial on our Library blog.

The success of our project has resulted in Eduserv basing a case study on us, and I have been invited to discuss our experiences at a series of Athens workshops throughout March.

Extensis Portfolio

We have finally been given the go-ahead from computing services to purchase and install Extensis Portfolio here at the University.

The purchase of Portfolio ends the search for an image management system (IMS), also known as a digital image repository, to incorporate and build on the slide collection currently held at Somerset Place, and promote the responsible use of copyright-cleared images by staff and students.

The slide collection at Somerset Place has over 50,000 images, but despite being a superb resource its use has fallen as the convenience of Google/Flickr has risen. We will purchase a few clients to manage the collection, Portfolio Server to host the collection, as well as Netpublish; a piece of software allowing us to present our collection to students via the web. For stability we are going to try and purchase SQL connect, which will have the ability to support large collections and allow our Netpublish websites to be customised (eventually).

Once the finance for the system has been arranged, our biggest issue for the success of system is copyright. A huge majority of the slides are covered by DACS (Design and Artists Copyright Society),  which is yet to confirm their stance on digitising the slides bought under their licence. As a result we will be left with an initial collection of around 5,000 slides which have either been copyright cleared, or the copyright is owned by the University. I really hope that the DACS licences can be cleared up and quickly – this would unable Nigel Paine (our images Librarian) to provide an unbeatable service for students and staff.

I am really excited about this project particularly as it was one of the first I have been presented with since joining Bath Spa.