Date/Time: Monday, 21 February 2022 @ 20:00 UTC

Attendees

Agenda

  1.  Administrivia
    1. Welcome Thomas Bärecke!
    2. CEO Forum proposal - Global T&I Futures WG update
    3. Providing a home for Internet2 MACE Directory Working Group, “MACE-Dir SAML Attribute Profiles”, April 2008, https://shibboleth.net/documents/internet2-mace-dir-saml-attributes-200804.pdf.
  2. Status reports:
    1. MET
    2. REFEDS Annual Survey
    3. REFEDS Annual Report
    4. REFEDS Annual Meeting @ TNC2022
  3. Finance and sponsorships
    1. new sponsorships?
    2. project-specific campaigns?
  4. REFEDS Strategic Plan
  5. 2022 Work Plan
    1. scheduling monthly informal calls


Notes

  1.  Administrivia
    1. Welcome Thomas Bärecke!
    2. CEO Forum proposal - Global T&I Futures WG update - Heather met with Klaas Wierenga (GÉANT), Kevin Morooney (I2), and Stefan Winter (eduroam) to talk about the CEO Forum's thoughts to create a working group focused on T&I. The proposal was to have a group that included individuals from outside the CEO Forum that could represent the views of different constituents in the T&I ecosystem. Klaas and Kevin took away the action item to develop the proposal further and seek approval from the CEO Forum.
    3. Providing a home for Internet2 MACE Directory Working Group, “MACE-Dir SAML Attribute Profiles”, April 2008, https://shibboleth.net/documents/internet2-mace-dir-saml-attributes-200804.pdf. - Scott Cantor requested that we give this a parament home on the REFEDS website or wiki as a community service. The question as to whether we will formally adopt and maintain it will be handled separately and in the future. Nearly all the entity categories reference this, so all the ECs would need a minor update to point to the new home.
  2. Status reports:
    1. MET - work has mostly been completed to update the code and fix login. One problem is that MET chokes on Cyrillic. That means we can give federations access to their own pages to make updates. Next will be considering putting in a maintenance plan and updating the federation pages to include more info (e.g., whether they have participated in the survey, indicate support for entity categories, etc.) - see budget discussion
    2. REFEDS Annual Survey - very low participation rate (approx 30 as compared to last year's 50). Heather has sent emails to each of the contacts as provided to eduGAIN for federations that have not yet answered the survey. Does this survey still have value to the community?
      1. AAF found a similar problem - the last two years have had significant staff drop off, and the theory is high staff turnover, and a focus on internal operations.
      2. There is still value in the survey, even with fewer responses.
      3. The drop-off in response rate is interesting data by itself. This drop-off of responses might be useful data for the CEO Forum, too.
    3. REFEDS Annual Report - draft is mostly done, pending resolution of the survey question
  3. REFEDS Annual Meeting @ TNC2022 - registration will be absolutely required to be allowed in the venue. NORDUnet will support the remote participation infrastructure.
    1. Could we include eduGAIN Futures? There will be informal updates every month up to TNC, so we shouldn't have to do those at REFEDS. Which means we have time on the agenda.
    2. Should the SC have an in-person meeting? Nicole and Heather will see if it is possible to schedule a half-day for the SC; another opportunity may be around CAMP/ACAMP in December
  4. Finance and sponsorships - given the high level of overhead with GEANT thanks to the VAT assignment, we need to make some decisions for the future.
    1. new sponsorships? current invoices have gone out. Sponsorship has been fairly static since REFEDS has started. At some point, we need to think about whether we want to push others to contribute, to move to a different model (e.g., support project-specific campaigns) or what.
    2. Note that GEANT has applied VAT because the Dutch government thinks we're an organization, but we are not registered as one, so we cannot charge back for VAT. This comes out of our budget. If we have another year of both consultants and a project, we don't have enough money because of the VAT expense.
      1. One option: use a mechanism outside of GEANT to collect the money, such as by using the Commons Conservancy and the Commons Conservancy Caretakers. Their overhead is much, much lower than the VAT. There is also already an MoU between GEANT and the CC, which would make this easier. Contracts would be paid out by CC, which would have different master agreements that might be more flexible than GEANT can be.
        1. Nicole to write up a plan
  5. REFEDS Strategic Plan
    1. How long should this cover? Five years, but with a rolling window
    2. Notes in the google doc
    3. Heather to send out a poll so we can focus on this and wrap it up
  6. 2022 Work Plan
    1. Heather is scheduling monthly informal calls and will send out a note re: the status of the 2022 work plan