Managing networked information resources more effectively: Candle
| Published date | 01 March 1998 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb040691 |
| Pages | 22-29 |
| Date | 01 March 1998 |
| Author | Robin Yeates,Andrew Cox |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management |
Managing networked
information resources
more effectively:
Candle
by Robin Yeates, formerly Senior
Researcher, LITC, and Andrew Cox,
Researcher, LITC, South Bank
University and the Candle project
partners1
This article describes some of the design
ideas being developed in the European
Commission co-funded Candle project. Our
aim in the project is to design a tool for
libraries to manage access to electronic
resources, particularly electronic journals.
In the article we describe the Candle system,
features of
which
will be: role based access
control, single sign on, services to remote
users, electronic journal subscription
management, detailed usage statistics,
scaleable administration of thousands of
users. Authentication to web resources will
be handled through a
proxy.
We discuss
future development plans based on our study
of user requirements. We also examine
emergent technology and standards such as
certificates, directories, mechanised licences
and privacy issues which will govern the
development of
future
versions of systems like
Candle.
What will Candle do ?
A student, George, logs onto a
workstation on campus. What he sees
on the screen is a customised desktop,
designed to match his interests and role.
For example, as a nursing student he
sees a list of health resources, alongside
the usual applications such as a word
processor and spreadsheet. When he
tries to access
a
protected resource, such
as an electronic journal, behind the
scenes, Candle handles authentication
with the resource, so George never has
to remember
a
username and password.
Resources could be anything from
campus printers and filestore to an on
campus examination server or locally
mounted full text database, to a remote
publisher's web site or a bibliographic
database. The user has Single Sign On.
Jane,
a lecturer in the business school,
logs onto her home machine to surf the
Web using her favourite commercial
Internet Service Provider (ISP). To
access remote electronic resources paid
for by the University she first
authenticates herself with Candle - using
the same username and password that
she usually uses to sign on to a
workstation on campus. Once she has
done this, pages requiring
authentication, such as publishers' web
sites,
are handled
by
Candle,
so
that she
does not need to know any passwords,
and can gain access to IP/domain
checked web sites
too.
Users can access
the same resources off campus as on it,
subject to licence agreements.
The Electronic resources librarian has
detailed (but anonymised) statistics of
who is using what, whether they are
logging in from the campus or away
from it. She can make rational
judgements about whether a licence is
cost effective, focus user training on
resources that seem to being underused
- and prioritise resources on users'
desktops. Candle offers her the
opportunity to deal directly with
individual publishers, because she can
keep track of her subscriptions through
Candle. She can negotiate licences for
a
small group of users to access an
expensive database for a short time.
The system administrator can manage a
large number of
users,
scripting transfers
of information from pre-existing user
databases into the Candle database,
through an API. The script is scheduled
to run automatically every night. New
users can be assigned to groups
automatically. Changes in users status
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