How does Elsevier use SAML attributes in federated access?

For IdP configuration instructions please visit How do I set up federated access as a librarian or administrator?

Elsevier SP attribute requirements are published here.

Access

Most of our products can be accessed via your IdP anonymously and don't require any personal attributes. As long as the user is authenticated via IdP, we'll let them in.

We require the use of:

• eduPersonEntitlement

which helps the IdP to control which user groups can get access to Elsevier.

It is also possible for IdPs to restrict access with some affiliation attributes, such as:

• eduPersonScopedAffiliation
• scope (only valid for OpenAthens customers)

Personalization

When a user accesses Elsevier via an IdP and creates account with us, we link a pseudonymous attribute from SAML assertion to their Elsevier user account, so that the user is recognized when they return. For this purpose we use one of the following attributes, in order of preference:

• SAML pairwiseID
• SAML subjectID
• eduPersonTargetedID - deprecated
• Persistent NameID - deprecated

We also use the pseudonymous attribute to block an individual user if we detect abuse.

If the IdP releases:

• mail

then the email field will be populated with that value during the account creation. The user is able to change that email address.

The user is not able to change a pseudonymous attribute, although they can request for their user account to be deleted from our database.