In order to better position REFEDS schema definitions for future evolution, the Schema Editorial Board advocates the principle that normative REFEDS Schema include a top-level document covering only the base attribute semantics and attribute type of each entry, excluding protocol and syntax specific terminology.  Protocol and syntax details would be left to formal specification documents.

The Board encourages future schema definition work to include such a top-level document in their suite of deliverables. Existing schema documents may be updated over time.

Examples:  VoPerson Object Class Definition for the LDAP Protocol and VOperson, SAML profile.

For discussion: The normative form of most existing schemas is LDAP object classes. The Internet2 Software Integration Working Group is working toward a more abstract specification language for schema. This work is introduced in the document TAP Attribute Terminology. These normative specifications will be collected into A TAP Attribute Dictionary. For implementation in code, subsets of the attributes in the dictionary can be mapped to a choice of syntaxes, representations, and/or protocols as needed.

Proposed Document Relationships

Schema Editorial Board
|
+-REFEDS/TAP Attribute Dictionary (semantics and attribute type only)*
| 
|
+-Specific Protocols and Schema
  |
  +-eduPerson *
  | |
  | +-Protocols
  |   |
  |   +-LDAP
  |   | |
  |   | +-LDIF
  |   +-SAML
  |   +-OIDC
  |
  +-SCHAC *
  |    |
  |    +-Protocols
  |    |
  |    +-LDAP
  |    +-SAML
  |    +-OIDC
  |
  +-TAP Protocols
      |
      +-TAP ID Match Protocol *

(This diagram includes Internet2 TAP work that could ultimately be merged with/into the SEB management structure.)

Items denoted with a * get their own git repositories for versioning.