That's a good idea, but if I were a German citizen I'd rather they use something that's tried and true like shibboleth. I can't speak for the rest of the world,

That's a good idea, but if I were a German citizen I'd rather they use something that's tried and true like shibboleth. I can't speak for the rest of the world, but shibboleth is what most of America's colleges and universities use to allow students to access research material the institution has paid for. Something that isn't obvious though, is anyone can setup a shibboleth identity provider, the only difference being that it's not on the whitelists that academic identity providers are on.