Jinfo: Articulating Authentication, Access and Usage Challenges

Articulating Authentication, Access and Usage Challenges
Jinfo Blog

2nd September 2015

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Controlling access to premium subscription resources, authentication methods and preferences are under the spotlight in the FreePint Topic Series "All About Usage - From Content Sharing to Data Mining". Find out more from Anja Thygesen, series co-producer.

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If you're looking into how to better control access to resources or have queries around licensing then the FreePint Topic Series "All About Usage - From Content Sharing to Data Mining" will prove of interest (register for free updates).

As discussed in my article "Database Development from a User Perspective", the role of information professionals and researchers has changed over recent years as more and more information and research centres are now spending a lot of time, budget and effort on making sources available to users, dealing with subscription management and end user access. As a result of this the question of access and authentication is increasingly playing an important role in our work.

When dealing with end user access, contract management plays an important role, especially what you are allowed to do and how you negotiate the best contract. In his article "We Want To, But Can We? Usage Needs and Contractual Conditions", Chris Porter discusses the interplay between requests from customers to use information in new ways and the underlying contractual conditions relating to content. Anders Lautrup Larsen adds another aspect to this in his article "Towards a Perfect Procurement Process" where he explains how to sign a perfect contract with your provider of information services, ebooks or subscriptions.

Authentication has been one of the key themes of our "All About Usage" series. It started with an article by Catherine Dhanjal about authentication and access control in the pharma field which turned out to be such an interesting area that FreePint decided to do an industry-wide survey over the summer to understand how the users are handling the priorities, approaches and required developments in the area of authentication.

The results of the survey were published recently in the report Research into Authentication 2015. They showed that almost 80% are using IP authentication, probably because they think that seamless access is the most important aspect of authentication. But IP authentication also presents some challenges such as lack of visibility of usage, mobile challenges and security. This may be the reason why more than half of the respondents assumed that they are likely to keep this solution but will be looking at alternatives as well.

The FreePint Topic Series "All About Usage - From Content Sharing to Data Mining" provides a wealth of insight into how to handle end user access - from contract management to authentication - register now to receive free updates and a PDF report containing Subscription articles upon registration, as well as a copy of the index report at the end.

Articles, reports and reviews published since the most recent blog update in the Topic Series "All About Usage":