OpenAthens

OpenAthens is an identity and access management service, supplied by Eduserv, a not-for-profit information technology services company based in United Kingdom. Solutions for Identity provider(IdP) organisations are: OpenAthens Managed Directory (OpenAthens MD),^[1] where individual usernames are held in the cloud, OpenAthens Local Authentication (OpenAthens LA)^[2] where individual usernames are held locally, integration with ADFS or LDAP or integration of any third party service supporting SAML where usernames can be held in the cloud, locally or both. OpenAthens SP^[3] software for Service Providers supports multiple platforms and federations.

History

With origins in the 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.

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).^[4] Launching as 'Athens' in 1997 (UK00002153200),^[5] the name has since been changed to 'OpenAthens' in 2007 and renewed as such again in 2015 (EU013713821).^[6]

Timeline^[7]:

1994

• Athens developed developed in response to a need for controlled access to online resources & first web service launched

1999

• Eduserv established as independent organisation
• Athens Agent for Service Providers

2000

• Athens adopted by NHS in the UK
• First official JISC contract signed

2001

• MyAthens user portal is launched

2002

• Athens Agent 3.5
• Athens DA launch
• Contract with British Council
• Athens adopted by NHS Wales
• Athens user accounts reach 2 million

2003

• JISC contract renewed
• Athens Agent 3.6

2004

• 3 million Athens user accounts
• MyAthens browser toolbar

2005

• Shibboleth to Athens gateway launched
• Athens Agent 3.7
• NHS Scotland adopts Athens

2006

• Partnership agreement with Integrated Information Network for Middle East^[8]
• EZproxy/Athens launched

2007

• Athens becomes OpenAthens, supporting open identity management standards like SAML, OpenID, OAuth
• Partnership with EBSCO for New Zealand and Australia^[9]
• Athens partner up with TDNet for Middle East, Canada and USA^[10]

2008

• OpenAthens sign partnership with Wolper Information Services - now LM Wolper Information Delivery- for USA and Worldwide^[11][12][13]
• OpenAthens SP 1.0 and 1.1 released

2009

• State-of-the-art Data Centre built
• OpenAthens SP 1.3 released

2011

• OpenAthens SP 2.0 released
• Athens Agent end-of-life announcement

2012

• OpenAthens LA 2.2 released^[14]
• OpenAthens SP 2.0.2 released^[15]
• OpenAthens LA 2.2.1 released^[16]
• OpenAthens Federation launched

2014

• Reseller agreement signed with Swets ^[17]
• Prenax signs an International Sales Partners agreement with OpenAthens^[18][19]
• OpenAthens extends partnership with EBSCO to Global ^{[20][21][22][23][24][25]}
• A new OpenAthens MD Admin Area is released^[26]
• OpenAthens LA 2.3 release ^[27]

2015

• Reprints Desk becomes a reseller for OpenAthens^{[28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35]}
• A new Redirector feature is launched ^{[36][37][38][39][40][41]}
• New partnership agreement signed with Basch for USA and Worldwide^[42]
• Librarians' experiences of Identity and Access Management study^[43][44]

See also

• Federated identity
• SAML 2.0
• SAML-based products and services

References