The road to seamless digital access: progress, potholes and promise
While access to quality digital resources has improved, barriers continue to emerge, says Jon Bentley
Not long after I joined OpenAthens 11 years ago I was talking to a librarian who gave me one piece of advice: “You have to help improve user experience”. That comment was repeated often by librarians in the days that followed.
Back then, academic library and publisher platforms used a variety of protocols and standards, making for inconsistent user journeys with frequent roadblocks. Librarians were laser-focused on UX across their systems, and while publishers were also working on UX improvements they were mostly designing around their own platform. Universities, research organisations and their librarians wanted a way to work with publishers to smooth online discovery journeys in which students and researchers typically range widely across multiple platforms, many international boundaries and countless resources.
Collaborative approaches to building trust
Elevating the federated identity model is the long-term solution. When I joined OpenAthens it had already been around for a decade or more, with numerous federations typically set up and operated at national level by national research and education networks (NRENs).
These national federations, like our own OpenAthens Federation, operate in the space between libraries, publishers and end users, establishing trust between institutional user directories and the access management layer for publishers and platforms.
Federations verify user identity based on their local credentials to make sure each user is active and licensed according to a live subscription agreement. The federated technology ensures library users can simply sign in once rather than each time they want to access a new platform or resource. Over the years, federated access has been developed and refined constantly thanks to collaborations at national and international level, like the SeamlessAccess initiative.
With this layer of trust established it has been possible to work collectively on improving user journeys. Collaborations such as SeamlessAccess have prioritised end users, recognising that the entire academic information ecosystem has to be designed around what users need, in terms of access and also privacy. The UX battle is being won, and librarians are championing the benefits of single sign-on to their users and working in partnership with international publishers of all sizes.
AI-driven discovery and integrity
Nonetheless, as information management methods change and technologies develop, new risks can emerge and it’s more important than ever to keep building trust. For example, open access publishing means there is much more content that isn’t behind a paywall, and AI-driven discovery brings instant access to popular content that seems to meet search criteria. But is it any good? How can people with undeveloped information literacy skills, or with only a non-specialist knowledge of their subject, look through all that content and decide what’s best? How can researchers working to a deadline make sure the data they are using is accurate?
Even if it looks like a recommended or well-known paper it might be an outdated version. It’s also increasingly possible that it could be research that is wholly or partly faked, or that the peer-review details have been falsified. The journal Nature has reported that more than 10,000 research papers were retracted in 2023, often for these very reasons. Papers like these can still show up in searches using commercial search engines or illegal sites like Sci-Hub and Anna’s Archive.
Research integrity is being challenged; it’s now a strategic issue for libraries. Over-reliance on AI-driven discovery is causing a decline in use of curated, licensed resources to the detriment of readers and their work, and it threatens the value and importance of academic and organisational libraries. This is a commercial threat to publishers, too.
Managing digital access to library resources is a global challenge
There has to be a circle of trust – enabled by libraries – so resource users can know that what they access online is the real deal. Here again, federated access management provides an answer. Libraries that provide a federated, SAML-based single sign-on solution can get on top of issues around trust. Libraries need anonymised user data to make informed licensing decisions and providers need the same information so they can both publish the resources users want and protect themselves from unauthorised access.
Why SAML-based? Because the SAML protocol is built to be secure in a way that IP-based systems never were, and single sign-on allows people to find – and work with – curated, quality resources with fewer clicks and no need to provide personally identifiable information (PII). Even when a resource is available in open access, an authentication solution that is based on IP-address usually requires would-be users to register and give up personal data if they want to personalise their experience and work more efficiently, perhaps by saving their search or annotating content.
Developed with mobile users in mind, single sign-on supports the trend towards working on the move and helps to close the digital divide for the millions who only have use of mobile devices and data. That includes people across much of Asia and Africa and many, still, in the US, UK and Europe.
Growing the circle of trust
Change is happening. In libraries, drives for federated single sign-on continue, bringing several benefits. Sometimes, it becomes a priority for libraries in smaller institutions and specialist organisations where budgets are under pressure and IT teams are shrinking, or specialist digital skills are hard to find. These pressures can only grow as libraries work with more kinds of platforms. Being a librarian has become a highly technical role, and outsourcing authentication to a managed, cloud-based federated single sign-on solution can free up staff time and focus.
We’re seeing that as libraries adopt single sign-on they are speeding-up the pace of change among publishers. Often, federated access is just one of many priorities for a publisher, but when their library customers ask for it, they act. Every time one does, the circle of trust becomes bigger and stronger.
Shared, trusted standards and interoperability
The key part of the single sign-on story is the federated infrastructure that supports it. It promotes and enables agreed standards and interoperability, allows people to share identity verifications securely, and ensures the integrity of the information exchange.
Put at its simplest, federated access allows knowledge to be shared in an environment built on trust. Readers and libraries know the information is valuable, accurate and up to date, and publishers can be sure their resources are accessed under valid licences.
The technology that supports it is set to remain the best option for authentication for years to come. But already, developers are collaborating internationally on what might come after current federated access and identity management systems, whether that’s OpenID Connect (OIDC), Federated Credential Management (FedCM) or something else. Whenever a new technology emerges as the frontrunner, it will stand or fall on its ability to support common standards, interoperability and trust.
Looking ahead
Over the past 11 years the information management industry has travelled a long way in improving user experience and building trust across research journeys. Looking forward, it needs to keep anticipating and responding to new challenges to academic trust and research integrity. That will make for exciting times. One thing’s for sure, though – librarians and publishers are both essential in finding solutions and smoothing the path. I’ll be watching with interest in my new role on the publishing side with Pharmaceutical Press, whose trusted, licensed research and expert editorial teams provide quality information that helps to make sure patients get the best care in a wide range of clinical settings.
Jon Bentley was Commercial Director at Open Athens for more than 11 years