Case Study: Devolved authentication at Swansea University

Swansea University - the Best Student Experience says THES

As part of The Times Higher Education Supplement award for Best Student Experience over 10,000 undergraduates assessed their institutions. Swansea University emerged as the clear winner. One of the facilities that may have influenced the students is the smooth integration between their Blackboard Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) and Athens protected resources.

Since 2003 Blackboard has become established as the University's VLE providing a mission critical interface to support teaching and learning initiatives. Each student is automatically given an account on Blackboard and access to appropriate modules. In order to minimise the number of separate usernames that students require, and that library staff have to support, the university decided to establish a Master Directory and to use these usernames for Blackboard and Athens. Library and Information Services (LIS) staff developed an innovative technical approach to Blackboard/Athens integration which can establish a pre-emptive Athens session when the user logs into Blackboard utilising AthensDA (Athens Devolved Authentication) from Eduserv.

AthensDA is a small but important part of the students' overall experience at Swansea University. The care and attention demonstrated by staff in providing these facilities must surely have influenced the students vote.

"This approach makes us more confident about our ability to provide secure access to protected resources, as usernames are now more accurate and secure. Also, by only having one username for all library information, we will reduce still further the customer support effort necessary to access online information".

Martin Price,
Deputy Director of Library and Information Services,
Swansea University

For more information about Swansea University's implementation of Athens DA please refer to their website.