Tom Roper, Head of Learning Resources

New LRC and federated access

South Thames College

11/04/23 South Thames College

11/04/23 South Thames College

New College

Features

Save the time of the reader

• Colour-coded subject zones, adjacent to teaching areas

• Mixture of provision for different learning styles, social and solitary

• Central contact point on each floor (joint staffing on 2nd floor)

• Presentation rooms• Internet café• Information skills teaching

area• Staff work area

11/04/23 South Thames College

New LRC

11/04/23 South Thames College

11/04/23 South Thames College

Federated access

• No history of widespread Athens use

• Different ideas about what federated access is for

• Consultancy: Salford Software

11/04/23 South Thames College

JISC RSC survey (Nov 08)• 78% of London FE Colleges

had joined the UK Federation

• Yet of those who had signed up a third had no solution in place

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Audit

• May 2008: audit of existing subscriptions, only one not committed to Shibboleth compliance (one new sub since)

• Installation: 24 November 2008

A year later, some of it works, but…

11/04/23 South Thames College

11/04/23 South Thames College

Some doesn’t

11/04/23 South Thames College

Still some way to go

• Users still challenged for multiple logins

• See Andy Powell on usability:

• Does anyone care?

To follow up

• JISC Federated Access pages http://www.jisc.ac.uk/federation

• Making the UK Federation usable http://efoundations.typepad.com/efoundations/2009/06/lets-get-usable.html

• Libraries of the future http://librariesofthefuture.jiscinvolve.org/

11/04/23 South Thames College