From: Nettie Lagace <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2017 13:14:08 -0400

Although the RA21 initiative was started by publishers, it was
recognized very early on that for it to be successful it would need to
be expanded to encompass all of the stakeholders in the scholarly
communication chain. RA21 has now been formally established as a joint
NISO/STM initiative, and has a new website at http://www.ra21.org/. Of
course, librarians are absolutely right to raise the privacy issue,
and RA21 seeks active engagement of the library community in making
sure that the recommendations that are taken forward fully address
these concerns. A set of guiding principles have been drafted (at
https://ra21.org/index.php/what-is-ra21/) which address the goal to
improve access to information while protecting the privacy of users. A
key objective is to create best practices that provide guidance on how
to use technology that exists today to let users access material they
are entitled to based on the subscriptions managed by their
institutions, from anywhere at any time.

All of the pilots which have been proposed so far seek to use
Shibboleth/SAML technology, which was built from the ground up with
privacy in mind.  Federated technology like this puts the user and the
institution in control of what information is shared with the
publisher. It is possible, for example, that only affiliation and role
attributes are shared by default, which are sufficient to confirm
institutional entitlements. It is also possible that a consent service
is added to the identity provider side, which would put users in
charge of determining what attributes beyond affiliation and role that
they are willing to share with publishers and other service providers.
There are many tools available in this space that allow users and
their institutions to control the level of privacy required, while
still enabling the users to optionally sign up for more personalized
services.

While RA21 came out of the publishing world, the participation of the
library community (and others!) are required to make this project a
success. This approach must be balanced; further questions and
engagement are greatly appreciated. Expressions of interest in getting
further involved or questions can be submitted at:
https://ra21.org/index.php/contact/

Nettie
----------------------
Nettie Lagace
Associate Director for Programs
National Information Standards Organization (NISO)
3600 Clipper Mill Road, Suite 302
Baltimore, MD 21211
Mobile: 617-863-0501
Fax: 410-685-5278
E-mail: [log in to unmask]


> ---------- Original Message ----------
> From: LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Date: 27 April 2017 at 03:22
> Subject: Re: RA 21 (Research Access for the 21st Century): Comments?
>
> From: "Hinchliffe, Lisa W" <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2017 01:52:17 +0000
>
> To the degree that SciHub is caused by "difficulty" in accessing
> licensed resources, systems to make it easier are all likely to try
> and address it. But, at this point, it seems unlikely that anything is
> going to be frictionless enough to overcome the simplicity of SciHub
> as long as users persist in feeling no ethical problems in using the
> site.  So, while that may be part of the discussion, I think the real
> benefit to the publisher platforms of the RA21 proposal is in the
> detailed analytics it will produce. With such a system, every user
> will be known as an individual to the platform - not just "faculty
> member from XYZ institution" but rather "this specific faculty member
> from XYZ institution."  The privacy implications of this are enormous
> and troubling from the perspective of the ethics of librarianship.
>
> --
> Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe
> Professor/ Coordinator for Information Literacy Services and Instruction
> University Library, University of Illinois, 1408 West Gregory Drive,
> Urbana, Illinois 61801
> [log in to unmask], 217-333-1323 (v), 217-244-4358 (f)