Authorization on the Web. A web authorization attribute management system permits delegating web service authorization to persons throughout the university. Much management of network accounts is delegated to schools. Gradually the power of this NetID was expanded to the authorizations agents of a dean to send bulk-email restricted to students and staff of that school. The granting of new passwords for NetIDs was also delegated to certain schools.
Users get accounts on specific machines depending on authorization attributes.
A proxy authorization process also allows authorized NetIDs to access library outside vendor databases when using IP addresses outside Northwestern University domain. The infrastructure to manage these resources requires authentication, authorization and an authorization delegation system. Most of the resources are accessed via the web. The management of these resources is done entirely through the web using delegated authorization. Initially, most account authorization was contained in a flat file that I personally needed to edit for each change.