UK federation - FE/HE/Research

UK Access Management Federation for HE/FE

The use of federated access management and the software available to support its implementation provides significant benefits to several user groups within the HE and FE sectors:

Support

Both JANET(UK) as managers of the federation and JISC as a co-funder are committed to providing on-going support to member institutions

JISC funding for small institutions

JISC is currently inviting applications for support from smaller UK FE / HE institutions to enable them to join the federation and establish their own Identity Provision in-house.

To find out more, read the application guidelines on the JISC website.

Aims/Objectives

JANET(UK) are working with JISC in promoting the benefits of federated access management to the HE/FE sector by running a programme of information and support to HE/FE sector organisations. Our aim is to encourage HE/FE organisations and online service providers to the these sectors to join the UK federation and implement the necessary open source software that will provide them with a framework for authentication and authorisation capable of granting individual learners with secure ‘anywhere, anytime’ access to educational resources that does not rely on the release of personal data.

Key milestones are:

July 2006 renewal of Athens contract and launch of the Athens Gateways
August 2006 first early adopters to join UK Federation
  Shibboleth compliance specified in new Nesli2 and other JISC contacts
November 2006 formal launch of the UK Federation
July 2008 end of current JISC contract for Athens

 

 

Useful Information

UK federation documents and presentations

News

UK federation launches - Nov 2006

Colleges invited to participate in call

Useful Links

UK federation service website

Becta Access Management

JISC Access Management

UK federation service development

Authorisation, Authentication and Identity projects

Further and Higher Education Institutions and Research organisations should contact Josh Howlett with any queries concerning their participation in the UK Access Management Federation.