For a seamless user workflow and stronger security, opt for a SAML-based solution

13 May 2025 • Chloe Park, marketing officer

At MIT World Peace University (MIT-WPU) providing seamless user workflows for 25,000 library patrons is a must. And with masses of sensitive student information and research data flowing daily, it must happen in a highly secure environment. That’s why the library has opted for a single sign-on solution from OpenAthens.

Challenge

Until recently the university’s library systems used IP-based authorization to grant patrons access to digital resources. It meant users could only access essential databases, journals and other subscribed-to content on campus. These include nearly 17,000 journals, 22 online databases and more than 2,000 e-books.

Enhanced user experience (UX)

Both the library and the IT department recognized this limited how and where patrons could study and collaborate. The search for a better solution was on, with a careful eye on affordability and ease of integration.

“A SAML-based single sign-on solution provides flexibility, improves privacy and security and gives us the scalable bandwidth we knew we needed,” says Dr Praveenkumar Vaidya, the university’s librarian.

OpenAthens Compass is based on Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML). This is an open standard that supports highly secure connections and information sharing to verify credentials. For many essential services, MIT-WPU uses Google Workspace, which is also SAML-based. So OpenAthens Compass can readily connect to MIT-WPU’s instance of Google Workspace and allow students, staff and researchers to authenticate into library services using their existing university credentials.

With OpenAthens compass, library patrons can work anywhere, from any internet-connected device, for a seamless user workflow without logging in multiple times.

“OpenAthens [Compass] fits the bill for SAML-based single sign-on to give remote access to library resources,” says Dr Vaidya. “And we trusted EBSCO Information Services’ team to support us through the implementation. They have a world-class reputation for customer service.”

Seamless implementation

OpenAthens Compass has been developed to protect user privacy and to interoperate with multiple organizational systems. It did so easily with the university’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) system and the library’s Koha open source library management system.

EBSCO helped MIT-WPU throughout the OpenAthens Compass implementation. They also supported effective promotion to users and with go-live with demonstrations just 30 days from the project’s start. It took just 15 more days to integrate OpenAthens Compass user data with Google Workspace and the ERP system. Now, library users can simply log into the ERP interface and seamlessly access the resources they need.