Resources: Search and Access

CLARIAH-DE offers access to widely distributed resources for the Humanities, many of which are freely available. In most other cases, a user account at a scientific institution (or a European facility affiliated with eduGAIN) is sufficient.

With CLARIAH-DE, users can access manifold research data, tools and other resources. CLARIAH-DE follows the FAIR principles and strives to make services openly accessible wherever possible. Many resources, especially research data, which usually stem from other research projects or affect the rights of third parties, are accessible only under restricted conditions. For these access-limited resources, CLARIAH-DE provides an Authentication and Authorization Infrastructure (AAI), by which access can be handled in a user-friendly way. The AAI enables the usage of all CLARIAH-DE services for users with a CLARIN-D or DARIAH-DE account, or an account at an institution which is part of eduGAIN.

A researcher at a German university, for instance, is able to query the entire inventory of CLARIAH-DE for relevant content as part of a Digital Humanities research project. Before, it was only possible to reach those services separately through the individual webpages of CLARIN-D or DARIAH-DE. As mentioned before, the resources offered by CLARIAH-DE include not only a variety of freely available data, but also services which, for legal reasons, can only be made accessible through authentication. Additionally, many services can be combined, often even across institutions. Thus, AAI makes the creation and administration of new accounts obsolete and simultaneously allows for a seamless switching between applications. Handling these diverse options of access in a safe manner and at the same time offering them to users with low effort is one of the core objectives of the project.

CLARIAH-DE currently provides this convenient access for more than 80 percent of German universities. Through participation in international AAI-networks (e.g. eduGAIN), easy access is also possible for other countries in Europe or even in the rest of the world.

Source for the figure: Wolfgang Pempe, Dokumentation DFN-AAI, presentation at the AAI and Shibboleth workshop | Berlin, February 18/19, 2019

Keywords:

Authentication and Authorization Infrastructure, AAI, Resource search, Resource access, Account, eduGAIN-Affiliation