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Federated Access Management (Shibboleth)
A number of educational institutions are moving from Athens authentication to Federated Access Management, otherwise known as Shibboleth,
which is an alternative method of user authentication which also allows service providers, such as Census.ac.uk, the Economic and
Social Data Service (ESDS) and the ESRC Data Support Units, to verify that a user has the credentials to access their resources.
New users from institutions which have adopted Shibboleth will be registered with Census.ac.uk in the normal way and should notice nothing unusual about the service.
At present, those users who previously registered using Athens authentication, but whose institutions move to Shibboleth authentication, will unfortunately
have to re-register when they first attempt to access census resources using their Shibboleth credentials. This is because the system does not exist to match
their old Athens ID with their new Shibboleth ID. In due course this will change and a link will be made which will allow users to continue their use of resources without re-registration.
Users who have registered using Athens authentication and whose institutions continue with Athens will not be required to re-register, but will continue to use the census resources as at present.
A number of FAQs
on Federated Access Management (Shibboleth) can be found on the Census.ac.uk web site. Any user experiencing difficulties registering or accessing resources can also contact the
help desk.