Please use this page to record ideas that you would like to include in the 2017 REFEDS workplan. Copy and paste the table below. Ideas don't need to be fully formed but the more scope we can get the easier it will be to assess whether idea should be taken forward. We look forward to all your ideas! Proposals will be discussed at the REFEDS Meeting on 29th November 2016.
Template
Title | <title of your proposal here> |
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Description | <description text here> |
Proposer | <your name here> |
Resource requirements | <money? effort? coordination? unicorns?> |
+1's | <for others to voice their support - add your name here> |
Ideas
Title | Baseline Expectations |
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Description | Various work has been put into better defining the baseline requirements for activity in federations - including via InCommon and the REFEDS assurance group. This work will look to operationalise this work in the context of existing federations and eduGAIN |
Proposer | From TechEx |
Resource requirements | coordination support + promotion |
+1's | Nick Roy, Tom Barton, Mark Scheible |
Decision | For assurance working group |
Title | Affiliation and Academia Entity Categories |
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Description | Complete the work on defining the affiliation and academia entity categories |
Proposer | From TechEx |
Resource requirements | coordination support |
+1's | Nick Roy, |
Decision | Little support to keep this going; keep under review. |
Title | Scaling use of tags within metadata |
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Description | Exchanging entity attributes outside of those with global definitions (e.g. R&S, Sirtfi etc) creates a potential for mounting conflict; part of handling this is orchestration and handling. There may also be tags that are defined within a federation, but not cross federation. This creates a vocabulary control challenge. Who handles the responsibilities among the fed ops to consider this and does this need managing? This work area will initially focus on discussion here (best practice), clarifying use cases and create a matrix to inform the discussion. Recommendations on future steps to support this (including potential registries, rules for stripping using MDQ etc.) will be made. |
Proposer | From TechEx |
Resource requirements | coordination support |
+1's | Nick Roy, Scott Cantor, Mark Scheible, Rhys Smith |
Decision | For entity category working group |
Title | Service Catalogue |
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Description | Various proposals have been made to create a federation service catalogue, most recently at ACAMP: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GHerhDYfwlgjN5-pQEryJF0RqOp7R_tWuHiuW5gTdjQ. This work will focus on defining staged requirement sets for a service catalogue and make recommendations as to how to implement such a service and where this should be hosted. |
Proposer | From TechEx |
Resource requirements | coordination effort |
+1's | SURFnet, Rhys Smith |
Decision | Fund effort to define requirements |
Title | 2 page glossy for SPs |
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Description | A well produced 2-page glossy defining the benefits of federation to service providers |
Proposer | From TechEx |
Resource requirements | editor, design |
+1's | Mark Scheible, |
Decision | Fund as part of communication work |
Title | Federation Skills Sharing |
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Description | A general conversation around how federations could share services more: developer, helpdesk, metadata skills, tools. How could we achieve funding a full-time business development manager for federations? |
Proposer | From TechEx |
Resource requirements | coordination support |
+1's | Nick Roy, Rhys Smith |
Decision | Pilot with support for GN4 Support functions |
Title | Federation Metadata Submission API standard |
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Description | Work with the TIER APIs and Data Structures Working Group and Federation Operators to define a venue for the standards-ification of an API for implementation by Fed Ops that will allow Federation participants to submit metadata in a standardized way. |
Proposer | From TechEx/Nick Roy, Rhys Smith, Bradley Beddoes |
Resource requirements | If we want to involve Ian Young as, say, a contractor to author an RFC on this (similar to per-entity metadata/MDQ) there may be a funding requirement. Other than that, just the normal working group stuff. |
+1's | Nick Roy, Tom Barton, Rhys Smith |
Decision | Fund effort |
Title | Discovery Service 2.0 |
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Description |
|
Proposer | Thomas Lenggenhager (a result of a TechEx ACAMP session) |
Resource requirements | Coordination effort, human resources to update the discovery guide |
+1's | Nick Roy, Tom Barton, Rhys Smith, Scott Cantor, Mark Scheible |
Decision | Fund effort |
Title | Federation Trust 2.0 |
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Description | Per-entity metadata and dynamic federation ideas force a rethinking of how Federations Operators signify their validation or endorsement of certain metadata statements, and consequently a rethinking of much of the process of operating a federation. Deliverables:
|
Proposer | Tom Barton |
Resource requirements | <money? effort? coordination? unicorns?> |
+1's | Nick Roy, Rhys Smith |
Decision | Fund effort - but perhaps not in 2017?? |
Title | Global Metadata Distribution Infrastructure |
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Description | Design, resource, and deploy a global metadata distribution infrastructure for both per-entity and aggregate metadata serving needs, for all federations to use, at global scale. |
Proposer | Nick Roy |
Resource requirements | Working group, calls, Federation Operator participation, money, unicorns, rainbow sprinkles |
+1's | Rhys Smith |
Decision | UK, CAF and I2 already committed to work on this, perhaps a small amount of Ian's time? TBD |
Title | Incident response handling in Identity federations |
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Description | This activity investigates and reports on the various ways Identity Federations have implemented incident response handling internally. The result should provide national federations with insite on what to expect when contacting a peer, and oppertunity for alignment and improvement. In addition it could support Sirtifi and eduGAIN e-Science support activities within AARC GEANT projects. |
Proposer | Niels van Dijk (on behalf of SURFnet) |
Resource requirements | Working group, calls, Federation Operator participation, tool to conduct inqueries |
+1's | Nick Roy, Rhys Smith |
Decision | For Sirtfi WG and GN4 |
Title | Last_Seen() |
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Description | Federated Auth sucks when it comes to de-provisioning, as it is very hard for services to determine if and why a user is no longer logging in. As a result account (and other) data may remain at the SP long after the user was using the service. This is an issue from data protection and security perspective. Various efforts have been proposed and attempted in past years, none actually involving the authoritative source for the identity: The Idp This activity investigates the possibility to create a IdP(protocol?) extension that would allow services to query an IdP if a user is still active in a scalable, secure and privacy preserving way. |
Proposer | Niels van Dijk (on behalf of SURFnet) |
Resource requirements | Working group, calls, Federation Operator participation |
+1's | |
Decision | Push to GN4 |
Title | To consent or not to consent |
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Description | Consent is used often within identity federations. While on a national level it may be clear what asking and giving consent entails, unfortunately consent does not mean the same thing in various countries as the legal grounds for consent vary. Also there are many ways to implement consent. What makes a good consent page and what does not? When is it (not) user friendly, what should be shown to make it legally usable? What are the best practices around consent globally? This activity investigates what it means to ask and give consent in various countries. In addition it describes recommendations for 'good' and 'bad' consent pages similar to the Refeds Discovery Guide. |
Proposer | Niels van Dijk (on behalf of SURFnet) |
Resource requirements | Working group, calls, Federation Operator participation |
+1's | |
Decision | Consider as part of revised discovery guidelines |
Title | Metadata Tagging for Security/Technical Issues |
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Description | Prompt (automated) reaction by relying parties with stronger security needs can be facilitated by tagging the metadata of IdPs with discovered problems. Tagging should minimize issues for the IdP in question while enabling relying parties with a need to react quickly. The response of commercial service providers used by the IdP's organization could be determined when contracts are developed ensuring that enterprise services are only disrupted under known circumstances. Per-entity metadata could make this mechanism more effective. |
Proposer | Jim Jokl |
Resource requirements | Potentially a separate working group but also a topic that could be addressed by an existing WG. |
+1's | |
Decision | For Sirtfi Working Group |
Working Groups
We are currently assuming that the FOG, SIRTFI, Assurance, Attribute Coordination, ORCID and IoLR working groups so no need to submit new ideas for those elements. If you would like a new WG then please submit the idea below. For more information about working groups please see the dedicated space on the REFEDS wiki.
Title | <title of your proposal here> |
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Description | <description text here> |
Proposer | <your name here> |
Resource requirements | <money? effort? coordination? unicorns?> |
+1's | <for others to voice their support - add your name here> |
Title | External Identities working group |
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Description | R&E federations are and will be confronted more and more with external identities, i.e. identities not created at institutions. These include identity providers of last resort, social identities but also identities from collaborative organisations, eGoverment or banks. Work on external identities is going in national federations, REFEDs, AARC and GEANT. This working group will investigate and bring together work in these activities, and discuss and report on these various aspects and findings to the broader REFEDs community. In addition the role and impact of external identities in relation to eduGAIN will be investigated. |
Proposer | Maarten & Niels van Dijk (on behalf of SURFnet) |
Resource requirements | Wiki space, Working group, calls, Federation Operator participation, money, unicorns, rainbow sprinkles |
+1's | <for others to voice their support - add your name here> |