In the networked information age, we are seeing the emergence of a web of interorganizational trust relationships in support of commerce and information access, implemented and expedited through new authentication and access management systems. Today this is perhaps most visible as libraries begin to offer extensive electronic resources that are used throughout the campus community. To make these agreements work, academic institutions and publishers must agree on mechanisms that the publisher can use to determine whether people trying to access the publisher s Web site are members of the appropriate academic community. Historically, a user s network address was used as a surrogate for his or her affiliation. On campus, networked computers were assumed to serve members of the campus community.
Today there is a vigorous, competitive market in commercial dial-up Internet access.
Many academic institutions, unable to compete with the pricing and geographic flexibility of the commercial offerings, have discontinued their dial-in services. In addition, new technologies such as cable-TV Internet access, ISDN, and DSL provide commercial broadband network access. Several technical approaches address this problem. Yet the technical problems with both approaches are formidable. Additionally, the choice of technical approach interacts with fundamental policy issues surrounding networked information access.