The joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) has announced that it ceasing it funding of Athens authentication from July 2008. Athens has and continues to allow university users single password access to their institutions resources.
The new access management is based on Shibboleth technology and will extend to schools, the public sector and commercial concerns.
Simplifying the access of thousands of students and institutions will it is hoped free staff to focus less on admin and free to concentrate on the selection and management of resources.
At the same time JISC is looking hard at the world of Web 2.0. Researchers, students, lecturers now also communicate through wikis, blogs, instant messaging, podcasts, RSS and in a world of collaborative working which is changing fast.
Why are these activities important to the rest of us? The answer is that they are dealing with the issues we all will face albeit earlier and with a slight difference in emphasis. These activities are certainly ones to watch.
