CNI PROJECTS

Current Projects | Complete List of Projects

Authentication, Authorization
and Access Management

Introduction

Authentication and authorization have emerged as essential infrastructure requirements for network-based access to information and have become a particularly critical need as institutions enter into site-license arrangements with publishers and other information providers, implement online and distance education initiatives, or form consortia for resource sharing. CNI pursues a program to define technology approaches, standards, best practices, and policy and business issues for such an inter-organizational authentication and authorization infrastructure, and to help early adopter Task Force member organizations share implementation experiences and explore interoperability issues. Working in partnership with Internet2, EDUCAUSE's Net@EDU, and the Digital Library Federation, we seek to illuminate many of the policy, strategy, operational and budgetary issues involved in access management.

Activities

Publications and Presentations

• A White Paper on Authentication and Access Management Issues
  

  in Cross-organizational Use of Networked Information Resources

  (April 14, 1998)

  "A first draft of this paper was released for reviewby members of the CNI Access Management list on March 28, 1998and generated a great deal of electronic discussion within theclosed CNI-AUTHENTICATE mailing list. This was followed by a meetingin Washington DC on April 5, 1998 to review and discuss the draft paper and comments generated on the list up to that date. Therevision has also benefited from discussions at a Digital LibraryFederation/National Science Foundation Workshop held in Washingtonon April 6, 1998 on closely related issues. My thanks to allwho contributed."
  
  

• A Call for Participation

  (February, 1998)

  "The objective of the CNI program is first to establish a common taxonomyof best practices and de facto standards that can be used to facilitateboth the negotiation of contracts and the actual implementation ofaccess arrangements, and then to move to proof of concept testbeds thatactually validate the technical approaches in practice."