OpenAthens becomes member of leading standards body, NISO

@OpenAthens, the world-leading identity and access management specialist, is pleased to announce its membership of the National Information Standards Organization (@NISOInfo).

Founded in 1939, NISO is a non-profit membership organisation, accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), whose mission is to build knowledge, foster discussion, and advance authoritative standards development through collaboration among the cultural, scholarly, scientific, and professional communities. Through NISO, all these communities are able to collaborate on mutually accepted standards and solutions that enhance their operations today and form a foundation for the future.

NISO and OpenAthens have worked together prior to the access management specialist becoming a member, including on the two-year RA21 initiative which delivered a set of recommended practices.

When RA21 was replaced by Seamless Access in 2019, OpenAthens continued to work with NISO and other organisations on the new initiative’s Advisory and Outreach Committee. OpenAthens has also participated in several NISO-led webinars and is represented on the NISO Plus 21 Planning Committee. NISO’s executive director, Todd Carpenter was a plenary speaker at the OpenAthens 2019 conference.

Recently NISO announced its three-year strategic plan, which focuses on four key themes: Diversity and Inclusion; Trendsetting; Standards Development for Content and Technology; and Community Development.

Voting Members of NISO must support its goals, which are to initiate, develop, maintain, and publish technical standards in the information industry. Furthermore, members are expected to understand and influence NISO standards, helping to ensure their own products both follow industry best practices and meet the customers’ needs.

OpenAthens joins NISO’s roster of well-respected member organisations, as a Voting Member which allows them to ‘have a voice at the table’, and to participate in discussion, debate, and decision-making about technological advances in information management. This includes the opportunity to join multiple NISO working groups and committees, and to stand for election for the NISO Board.

Todd Carpenter, Executive Director of NISO welcomes OpenAthens support, saying:

“OpenAthens is a well-known and highly respected business in the information industry, which has gone above and beyond to show that it exemplifies the highest standards when rolling out new products and helping customers.

“We are delighted to welcome the OpenAthens team to our membership and are happy that they will be able to contribute fully to our ongoing discussions about future technical standards for the knowledge sector.”

Jon Bentley, Commercial Director at OpenAthens, commented:

“We have seen tremendous growth over the past few years, especially in North America, so we are excited to participate in NISO’s important work on standards development, as well as contributing to the NISO Plus 2021 conference and NISO webinars, and more.

“Supporting and innovating for the future, and providing excellent customer service, are all part of OpenAthens’ key values. We are incredibly happy to contribute to the work of NISO and continue our work as market leaders in the access management domain.”