Higher Education and Research

Welcome to HEAL-Link Federation for Higher Education and Research. The federation provides a single sign on solution in order to access online resources and services for education and research provided by HEAL-Link.

Shibboleth: HEAL-Link federation uses the standards-based Shibboleth middleware, developed by the Internet2 community. Shibboleth is standards-based, open source middleware software which provides Web Single SignOn (SSO) access management that is being adopted by education and commercial sectors across the world. more info

Shibboleth Technical Overview

Benefits of the use of SSO

  • Benefits for Identity Providers (IdP) - Higher Education Institutes / Research Institutes
    • Better service offered to users
    • Integration with existing access management systems
    • Usage of the same access control for all resources
    • Both internal and external Fewer support problems (central control)
  • Benefits for Service Providers (SPs) - typically Publishers
    • No need to maintain own user database
    • Authentication is performed by the IdP
    • Can authorise per institution, role, and/or entitlement
    • Reduced user support
    • Reduced compliance burden
    • Less storage/processing of personal data
    • Accurate implementation of licence conditions
    • Organisations take better care of assertions as centrally controlled
  • Benefits for End Users
    • Much less need to disclose your identity
    • Personal data kept between you and your home organisation
    • Publishers can tailor services better (preferences etc)
    • Better care of credentials (one or few passwords for all resources)
  • Benefits for Educational Sectors
    • Provides consistency across the whole HEAL-Link Consortium for federated authentication and authorisation
    • Improves the user experience
    • Pools experience and expertise
    • Facilitates sharing of content and collaboration across sector