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scholarly e-resource to universities and colleges in India 2.1 Identity Provider
under e-Shodh Sindhu initiative of the Ministry of
Identity Provider software is run by the institutions
Human Resource Development (MHRD). The INFED
having database of users entitled to access subscription
has been set-up as a centralized entity to coordinate
based e-resources or services. Shibboleth leverages the
with member institutions in the process of
organization's identity and access management system,
implementation of user authentication and access
so that the individual's relationship with the institution
control mechanism distributed across participating
can be used to determine access rights to subscription
institutions using standardized rules and metadata for
based e-resources or services. In other words, different
exchange of attributes.
categories of users in an institution may have access to

Shibboleth access management model is essentially different sets of resources based on attributes assigned
designed to run in a federated mode wherein individual to them. In case of Shibboleth implementation at
participating institutions are required to run their own INFED, participating universities and colleges would
Identity Provider Services for users in their respective register themselves for creation of an identity
institutions. Alternatively, members can use identity management system using college administrative
provider services offered by the INFLIBNET Centre interface. A trusted officer (Administrative or Technical
through INFED. A formal federation is required as Contact) nominated by the college/university

trusted interface between the institutions as Identity authorities, is made responsible for maintaining identity
provider (IdP) and publishers as Service Providers (SP) to management system for a given college on the INFED
ensure use of uniform standards and protocols while Server.
transmitting attributes of authorized users to publishers.
2.2 Service Provider
INFLIBNET Centre is operating the Federation for Indian Service Provider software is run by the publisher of a
Higher Education Institutions. The INFED website give subscription-based e-resource or service. The Service

a broad outline of goals and purpose. At the outset, In Provider receives a set of pre-defined attributes from the
the broader context, INFED offers the off-campus access Identity Provider and provides access to subscribed e-
facility to librarians. The scope of INFED is depicted in resources or services to the user depending upon the
figure given below. attributes received.

2.3 Federation Metadata

It provides the basis for trust between Institute and
Publishers. Normally, owners of the federation keep
track of the metadata of the Institutes and Publishers.
When an Institution or Publisher receives a request from
another provider, it needs to be able to verify that the
remote provider is who it claims to be . When institute

claims to access the content from the publisher, the
service provider could identify the details of their
institute by using their supplied metadata. If it has been
positively identified, Institute and Publisher can
Scope of INFED

15 Vol. 24, No. 2 (April to June, 2017)