ProQuest, part of Cambridge Information Group, US, has announced that all products hosted on the ProQuest platform - from ABI/INFORM, Research Library and ProQuest Central to historical and current newspapers, ProQuest Medical Library and Entrepreneurship - are now Shibboleth compliant. The Shibboleth System (a trademark of the University Corporation for Advanced Internet Development) is a standards-based, open source software package for web single sign-on allowing library sites to make informed authorisation decisions for individual access of protected online resources.
Shibboleth overcomes the complexity of managing passwords, as well as the challenges associated with authentication technologies (such as IP authentication and Athens), enabling single sign-on and federated administration of access to restricted resources. The user's site and the target site exchange information based on attributes. This approach allows for more active privacy management than relying solely on the unique identity of the user, significantly reducing the workload for information professionals in managing user identities, and providing a more uniform experience for the user. The compliance of the ProQuest platform products is a landmark in the development of Shibboleth compliance.
ProQuest's Shibboleth release provides support for federations such as the United States (InCommon), Canada (The Canadian Access Federation), United Kingdom (The UK Access Management Federation for Education and Research) and Germany (DFN-AAI). Other federations will be supported at a later date.
