Shibboleth is a project to make make access to scientific and scholarly information as wide and easy as possible --short of simply adopting open access. Unlike other forms of DRM, Shibboleth makes access depend on a framework of trust between the user's institution and the institution archiving the desired information, as opposed to the unilateral policies of the latter alone. It is now calling for participants in a pilot project.
In the pilot, EBSCO and Elsevier will make selected databases accessible to participating institutions. I can see why they'd prefer Shibboleth to open access. I can't see why they'd prefer it to traditional DRM, but I applaud them for testing its preferability. On the other hand, Shibboleth is also designed to allow universities to share information with one another. Here's where I lose the thread. Shibboleth is more difficult to implement and use than open access, and leaves standing more barriers to access. So for inter-university sharing, why is it better than open access? If a university is willing to share certain information with fellow academics without charge, why not share it with the world and dispense with complex middleware? (I really want to know.)
Posted by
Peter Suber at 7/14/2002 02:16:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
