1 - Build a definition for researcher, sponsored
(See notes from last call: https://wiki.refeds.org/display/STAN/eduPersonAffiliation+Subcommittee+Call+-+14+July+2020)
Can we actually come to a global definition for researcher? Why would any institution allow a schema to define how they label the affiliations relevant to them?
Is this actually different than the issue with the definitions of student and faculty?
What if we direct everything to be an entitlement, and restrict affiliation to a binary operation - member, or not? Entitlements are too fine-grained and are actually a three-way relationship between the user, the institution, and the service, whereas affiliation is just between the user and the institution. Having big buckets greatly simplifies life for smaller institution. Entitlement per app is not manageable.
Entitlement should be an open-value of affiliation; if you get too detailed, then you are probably overthinking the problem. An institution gets to define their entitlements, and so something like “researcher” would be locally driven. The value may or may not be shared across applications.
The application also likely does not care what the local definition is for something like researcher.
Given the scope of this committee, we will not consider removing any existing affiliation values
It is almost impossible to have a single definition for researcher. There is some kind of relationship between an individual and an institution that we’d like to capture, but it’s too specific per institution.
What if we focused on whether grant funding is involved - if yes, then can define that as a researcher? Unclear that will actually match the use cases, and whether applications will accept that as a definition. Also, not all researchers are directly grant-funded.
Need to share the message that we cannot provide a definition for a researcher affiliation that is globally accepted. The scope of an entitlement, however, can be as broad or as narrow as necessary; if the requirement is global, can’t do it, but if we can work locally with just a handful of definitions, then we can guide the use of entitlements.
Renter.fr.researcher = local entitlement
InCommon.org.researcher = local entitlement
This will allow for experimentation without closing off avenues for discussion. We may see consolidation of definitions over time. Consider pushing this back to the research institutions and ask them to figure out the definition.
Research collaborations may not be able to handle the local entitlements, as they are looking for a global value independent of institution and federation. They do not have the resources to engage with individual institutions to make sure their requirements are aligned.
Reminder that whatever path we go down, creating a new value (entitlement or attribute) is an equal amount of work for identity providers. If we pursue this, we probably only have one opportunity to get this to be added to a local directory.
2 - Next steps
Next call will focus on sponsored; will look for a better term and associated definition.