Launch of re-branded administration area and MyAthens and introduction of user attributes

We are very pleased to announce the launch of the re-branded Athens administration area and MyAthens websites, our new user attribute functionality and the upgraded Home Domain Discovery Service (AthensDA).

The websites have been re-branded in line with the rest of Eduserv services (Athens is a service of Eduserv).   Eduserv (http://www.eduserv.org.uk)  has been implementing a new visual style, linking its name formally both with the services it provides - Eduserv Athens, Eduserv Chest, and Eduserv Internet (previously NISS) - and with the grant making initiatives of the Eduserv Foundation since the beginning of September 2003. The main Eduserv Athens website (www.athensams.net) as well as the Education and Health websites already have the 'new' look.

Administration area

In addition to the new design and, as mentioned in our message of 14 May 2004, we have introduced a new 'attributes' function within the Athens service, our first step towards full attribute capability.  The first attribute to be made available is 'Student' which is only relevant to the academic community.

Administrators will see a new 'User permissions' item on the  menu bar where we have grouped all the facilities to manage resource permissions for users.  These are split as follows:

• Via permission sets link.  For allocation of resources via permission sets. The Add/Modify page also includes a new 'User attributes' function which, to begin with,  only displays a 'Student' attribute for administrators who wish to flag student accounts.  Although there are no resources using attributes as yet, there is significant interest from DSPs for this attribute.
  
  
• Via accounts link:  For administrators who still use the old method of individual resource allocation by account. Please note that the recommended method is to use permission sets as these are much easier to manage. The Athens Service Desk will be happy to talk anyone through the simple conversion process.

The 'Resources' menu item now only includes the resources list for each administrative level as well as the 'Enable permission sets' link to allocate resources to Permission sets.

MyAthens

The re-branded MyAthens pages have been re-designed with a new 'tab' format navigation bar for ease of use.  Links to other useful pages are now more prominent and the first thing users see when logging in is their list of resources.  The actual functionality of MyAthens remains unchanged but an additional line of text appears for accounts  with access to a permission set that has been flagged with the 'Student' user attribute. The homepage has been re-arranged so that all the information appears on one screen.

HDDS

This service is only relevant to organisations who use AthensDA.  We have added the link 'Need help logging in?' to all Athens authentication points for users who go directly to the resource login page before they have set their organisation cookie.  Users are directed to a list of organisations displayed in a tree format pointing them to either their organisation details or to the HDD service pages for AthensDA users enabling them to set their organisation cookie.  The new organisation tree displays the new contact details recently collected from administrators in accordance with DPR guidelines.

June 2004