An open discussion list for topics related to the eduGAIN interfederation service.

[Nicole Harris <harris AT terena.org>]

On 02/07/2014 13:41, Lukas Hämmerle wrote:
>
> Yes, but eventually blame falls back to:
> * the service (they probably are aware that they use eduGAIN metadata)
> * the user's organisation (ok, it's probably their fault)
> * the federation (they often get paid by the organisations)
>
> In all three cases the blame then could falls back to eduGAIN, which
> basically relies on these three user groups.
>
> Similar things for eduroam. If users complain about "eduroam" on twitter
> or facebook, who in the end suffers? The institution or country operator
> whose fault it is or eduroam as a whole service?
Still disagree with you there - I think eduGAIN and eduroam are very
different kettles of fish from a user engagement process.

>
>
>> It might be worth having a more general
>> discussion about the strategic direction for eduGAIN and whether
>> participants want eduGAIN to remain something that is just about secure
>> metadata exchange or to add features that increasingly make it look like
>> it wants to be a confederation. 
> How about offering the monitoring tool in a way where a federation could
> "opt-out", which then would not monitor the IdPs of that federation, or
> as I suggested be made aware themselves that one of their entities
> probably is not consuming eduGAIN metadata. That way not all federations
> would have to build/deploy/run such a tool themselves.
I don't think it is about whether or not a federation wants to opt-in or
out, but more a general discussion about how much additional service and
additional support you want to build centrally at eduGAIN (which carries
with it the need for more operational staff, more ongoing overheads etc)
or whether you want to invest in developing tools with project funding
that is then operated in a distributed fashion by the federations and
becoming part of their operations.   So  a more philosophical question :-)