OpenAthens Federation. Global access to content.

Extend the reach of your content and services to more library customers globally.

Find out more

OpenAthens Federation. Hands in a circle showing community and inclusion.

Join our federation – we’re inclusive!

Our identity federation allows participation from any country or sector. Join our 3,000 strong members and expand access to 8 million users worldwide in the academic, government, healthcare, pharmaceutical and corporate markets.

Join our federation with any SAML single sign-on solution. We offer our own single sign-on solutions for libraries and publishers.

Some of the largest publishers in the world are members of our federation. They use our products and services so they can operate in national identity federations around the globe.

Who's in our identity federation?

How does it work?

How federated access works

View our animated graphic which shows how users get access, all in a matter of seconds.

Learn more about federated access

An introduction to federated access

This webinar helps to remove some of the mystery around one of the most important – but widely misunderstood topics – identity federations.

Watch our webinar about identity federations

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Demystifying federated access to content

Our webinar explains how federated access works, the difference between federated access solutions and how they all work together.

Watch our webinar about federated access

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Talkin ’bout my federation – attributes

Our webinar aims to remove some of the mystery around attributes and their role within federated access.

Watch our webinar about attributes

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We collaborate with other identity federations

Our cloud-based solutions enable you to join other identity federations around the world.

We work with other identity federations on international technical standards and best practice so that our products and services can be used in federations in different countries.

Hosted in multiple global regions, our cloud-based services provide a fast and reliable connection to digital content.

OpenAthens Federation. Privacy - woman with hand in front of face. Proxy.

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User privacy and security

We know that privacy is important to your library customers and end users. You no longer need to request personally identifiable information from library patrons. Simply exchange a persistent opaque identifier to allow library users to access specific content or for personalization.

Data is encrypted and exchanged in the cloud, adding an additional security layer and ensuring a secure connection between users and the content they subscribe to.

Members of our federation agree to abide by our privacy rules around the secure exchange of user information, providing assurances that users accessing your content are from one of your subscribing organizational customers.

Our services are ISO 27001 compliant and as part of our federation service, we check security certificates and run regular penetration tests to mitigate against cybersecurity attacks. View our security guide.

View our privacy statement

Contact us to find out more

We will use the contact details you provide to us to send you information about our products and services.

You can opt out of our emails at any time by using the link in the emails and you can view our privacy policy.

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