Federated access

A federation is a group of organisations that share a set of agreed policies and rules for access to online resources. These policies enable the members to establish trust and shared understanding of language or terminology. A federation provides a structure and a legal framework that enables authentication and authorisation across different organisations.

The UK Access Management Federation

The UK Access Management Federation for Education and Research is funded by the JISC and Becta, and operated by JANET(UK), the federation provides a secure method for accessing online services. Eduserv has produced some information on how to join the Federation.

The Federation Gateways

The Federation Gateways, funded by the JISC, have been designed by Eduserv Athens to enable Identity Providers (IdP) and Service Providers (SP) to take up federated access management, whilst maintaining existing methods of access to resources for all users.

Local authentication

Athens offers a number of ways in which a local authentication system can be integrated with Athens. For more information please refer to our Local authentication section.