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

[Nicole Harris <harris AT terena.org>]

So what I seem to be hearing here are the following actions:

1.  REFEDS to look at an "academic IdP" EC and possibly a "public
sign-up" EC (quick before Leif finds some more!).
2.  Would be good to work with CLARIN a bit more to tease out a better
definition of their user / customer base...perhaps Lukas and I can look
at this with Dieter and Jozef through the Enabling Users work?
3.  Some work looking at scopes around "academic" roles, which could fit
in with the SCHAC / MACE work that has been proposed.

Anything else? 

Jozef do you think any of these approaches will help you?  If yes then
we can call it a successful friday afternoon debate :-)

Cheers

Nicole


On 28/11/2014 16:58, Leif Johansson wrote:
>
>
>
>> 28 nov 2014 kl. 17:44 skrev Ian Young <ian AT iay.org.uk>:
>>
>>
>>> On 28 Nov 2014, at 16:10, Peter Schober <peter.schober AT univie.ac.at> 
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> *But* I think we have heard several reasons why (a) focussing on the
>>> SAML IDP (or even the institution) may not be useful, and (b) coming
>>> up with a shared/common understanding of the membership criteria for
>>> such a category is highly unlikely to happen.
>> I have to agree, although I'm open to be persuaded by an actual 
>> implementable definition that matches what people want to do.
>>
>> An IdP entity category could obviously be part of that, but I believe that 
>> an "academic IdP" category is not going to be the answer (at least to the 
>> stated goal of "connecting
>
> agree - Doesn't mean it won't be useful...
>
>> to every *academic*") for a couple of reasons, because using the identity 
>> of the organization that owns an IdP doesn't givs you a perfect match with 
>> academic *users*. Not all accounts at an "academic IdP" are going to be 
>> associated with "academics", and some "academics" have accounts in places 
>> we wouldn't be likely to think of as "academic" IdPs.
>>
>> So to answer the stated use case, you need to combine:
>>
>> * A way of distinguishing IdPs that are trusted to assert that a 
>> particular user is "academic" (this could be an entity category, but it 
>> would have to be broader than Leif's straw man), and
>>
>> * A vocabulary for such an IdP to assert that a particular user is an 
>> "academic".
>>
>> Like I said, this is a hard problem. I'm with Peter in thinking that it's 
>> probably close to insoluble as stated. To make progress, we'll probably 
>> find that we have to accept some shift in the boundaries of the use case.
>>
>>    -- Ian
>>
>>
>>
>>
>


-- 
Nicole Harris
Project Development Officer
GÉANT Association Amsterdam Office (formerly TERENA)
Singel 468 D, 1017 AW Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Skype: harrisnv
M:+31 64 610 53 95