FAQ – RA21: Resource Access for the 21st Century

"Resource Access for the 21st Century (RA21) is a joint STM and NISO initiative aimed at optimizing access protocols across key stakeholder groups, including (but not limited to!) publishers, librarians, campuses, vendors, and identity federation operators, with a goal of facilitating a simple user experience for users of scholarly information resources.... RA21 can also be implemented in manuscript submission systems, editorial review tools, pre-print servers, etc, easing the difficulties uses have today in managing multiple accounts and passwords for these tools, and potentially allowing usage reporting on the institutional level, supporting the reporting and compliance requirements of institutions. At present, libraries have no way of measuring usage of freely available information resources by their patrons. Depending on the access mechanism selected, it may be possible for librarians to better understand the patterns of usage of their patrons /across all information resources."