Internet2 Fall MM 2007 - Jane Charlton

Joint Information Systems Committee 04/12/23 | | Slide 1Joint Information Systems Committee Supporting education and research

International Task Force MeetingInternet2 meeting, 8 October 2007, San Diego

Jane Charlton, JISC

Joint Information Systems Committee 04/12/23 | | Slide 2

Inter-federation policy: enabling collaboration

Jane Charlton

Access Management Outreach Co-ordinator, JISC


JISC www.jisc.ac.uk

Provides world-class leadership in the innovative use of ICT to support education and research

Funded by UK further and higher education funding councils to provide:

National services (network, content, advisory)

R&D programmes and projects

Themes: network, content, e-learning, e-research, access management, information environment, e-admin, business & community engagement


What is an access management federation?

A group of organisations that sign up to an agreed set of policies for exchanging information about users to enable access and use of resources and services.

Trust relationship between identity providers and service providers, devolving authentication to the user’s home institution.

Authorisation – secure exchange of information through the use of attributes.


The UK Access Management Federation

Launched November 2006

Jointly funded by JISC and Becta

Hosted by JANET (UK)

– Schools, FE, HE and Research

– Organisations and institutions providing services to these sectors

Policy Board and Technical Advisory Group

www.ukfederation.org.uk


Supporting the transition

Becta – schools sector

JISC – further and higher education

JISC 2 year transition programme

Access Management Outreach Team

– Further and higher education

– Service providers (eg. publishers)

– National and international organisations


Supporting the transition

From Athens legacy system (centralised system) to federated access management (devolved system)

More choice and flexibility

– 3rd party providers

– Open source or commercial

Security

Institutional readiness


UK Access Management Federation

Find out more about the UK Access Management Federation

Internet2 meeting, Sunset room

Tuesday 9 October, 1.15 – 2.30pm

Nicole Harris ([email protected]) and Mark Tysom ([email protected])


International Task Force Meeting

Enabling collaboration: Current issues and International work


The International scene

Federations in operation: Croatia, Finland, France, Norway, Switzerland, UK, USA

Federations in development or testing: Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, Sweden

This number likely to grow…

All except Norway, Netherlands, New Zealand and Spain are Shibboleth-enabled (interoperate with Shibboleth)


Drivers for inter-federation policy

Service Providers currently required to join each federation because of licensing laws

– Time consuming: differences in legislation and federation set-up

– Not scaleable


Drivers for inter-federation policy

Collaboration and shared access to institutional resources

– Research

– Institutional repositories

– Learning environments


Knowledge Exchange

Partnership between Denmark (DEFF), Germany (DFG), Netherlands (SURF) and UK (JISC)

Content working group

– International licensing agreement funding 4 publishers

Access Management working group

– JISC study on federation policy agreements

www.knowledge-exchange.info


Terena

Terena (Trans-European Research and Education Networking Association)

A forum to collaborate, innovate and share knowledge in order to foster the development of Internet technology, infrastructure and services to be used by the research and education community.

http://www.terena.org/


Terena: 1st International Confederation Workshop

Define inter-federation models

Identify and co-ordinate use cases of major research projects that would benefit from inter-federation connections

Legal aspects - JISC study on federation policy agreements

Attributes, levels of assurance

Watching brief: eGovernment, OpenId, CardSpace



JISC study: Feasibility of a cross-jurisdiction Common Access Management Federation

Agreement


JISC study on federation policy

Follows on from earlier study on International aspects of federated access management

JISC Legal

Project acronym

– JISC Legal FACT (Feasibility of a Common Template)



Led by Mahesh Madhavan, Legal Information Specialist

– Master of Laws, Australia

– e-Repositories, e-collections, service agreements & templates

Managed by Jason Campbell, Service Manager

– European and contract law

Supported by 2 other Legal Info Specialists, Research Assistant and Senior Librarian



Aims:

– To identify common elements between federation policies and agreements and

– To determine the feasibility of creating a template agreement to make it easier for publishers and service providers wishing to join multiple federations.



Intended outcomes:

– If feasible, to allow the development of a template agreement for use across multiple access management federations and ultimately:

• To encourage more publishers and service providers joining federations

• To make access to online resources easier for users through publishers joining federations

• To enable inter-federation collaboration and exchange of information



Objectives:

– Analyse 9 countries’ federation policy agreements and legal documentation including: the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden), France, Switzerland, Netherlands, UK, USA

– Identify commonalities between federation policies and agreements

– Evaluate whether a common template is possible and consider if it could be used in peering federations or confederations

– Consider how a template could be updated and adapted as legislation changes and new technologies emerge



Policy differences in:

– Rules and regulations of membership

– Legal requirements

• Data protection, privacy, IPR, liability

• EU and US law

– Fees for joining

• No fee (Switzerland, UK and France)

• Full fee (Norway and US)

• Subsidised by government (Finland)


Countries involved in the study

Six operational federations:

– Finland, France, Norway, Switzerland, UK, US

Three in test/development:

– Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands

“Kalmar Union” confederation: Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden

Norway and Switzerland – earliest federations

UK – potentially one of the largest federations

The Netherlands and US have other national federations



Stakeholders include:

– federation staff

– publishers and other service providers

– relevant international organisations eg. Terena

– Institutional staff from two JISC projects

Outputs will include:

– Website: www.jisclegal.ac.uk/access

– final report



Timescales:

– August: project plan and website in place

– September: survey of federation agreements

– October: analysis of common elements, frameworks and mechanisms for updating

– November: draft report available

– January: final report published



Further information

Website www.jisclegal.ac.uk/access

Blog http://jisc-legal-fact.blogspot.com

Email list www.jiscmail.ac.uk/jisc-legal-fact



Defining inter-federation models


Inter-federation models


Inter-federation model: Peering

UK Federation

SwissFederation

Bi-lateral policy

agreement


Inter-federation model: Confederation

UK Federation

Norwegian Federation

FrenchFederation

US Federation

Swiss Federation

Multi-lateral policy

agreement


Inter-federation model: Leverage

Smaller Federation



Identifying inter-federation use cases


Use case: Potential for cross-federation collaboration

Proposal for a small scale inter-federation demonstrator that will enable collaboration on a research project between UK and Australia

Focus on practical issues of peering federations

– Series of use cases for researchers

– Exchange of data between the two federations

More information: James Farnhill, JISC ([email protected])/ Patty McMillian, AAF ([email protected])


Why explore federation peering model?

Many federations still being set-up and uptake of membership is currently slow, therefore global confederation model unlikely in next 3 – 5 years

Easier to establish than confederation

Testing ground for confederations, particularly for establishing use cases


Inter-federation policy: enabling collaboration

Thank you for listening – any questions?

Jane Charlton, JISC

[email protected]


What is an attribute?

Identity information about a user

eduPersonScopedAffiliation ([email protected]) – user’s relationship with institution

eduPersonTargetedID (r001xf4rg2ss) – persistent psuedonym for personalisation

eduPersonPrincipalName (charltonjl) – mostly used for internal services

eduPersonEntitlement (Universal Resource Identifier) – restrict access to specific groups

Internet2 Fall MM 2007 - Jane Charlton

Technology

Transcript of Internet2 Fall MM 2007 - Jane Charlton