REFEDS has previously explored the possibility of defining entity category tags to describe characteristics of IdPs. The Hide from Discovery tag has been successfully approved and is in use within federations to categorize IdPs that should be excluded from discovery interface. REFEDS also explored the idea of an "academia" tag but the challenges of successfully and coherently defining this category lead to this idea be shelved for the time being.
There are now increasing numbers of different types of IdPs appearing in federations, and federations joining eduGAIN that are not necessarily representing just higher and further education institutions. Services such as InAcademia and CLARIN would like to be able to distinguish between IdP types at a greater level of granularity. A series of tag descriptors could be implemented by federation operators or self-declared by federation members to support this requirement. Some suggestions are included in the table below - these have been quickly pulled together as possible scenarios so the language used in the descriptions is currently sub-optimal and open for improvement.
| Type | Description |
|---|---|
| public library | an IdP supporting users from a nonprofit library maintained for public use and usually supported in whole or in part by local taxation. |
| K12 | an IdP supporting users from an organisation supporting school grades prior to college. These grades are kindergarten (k) and the 1st through 12th grade in the US, or an equivalent grade system in other countries. |
| Above K12 | an IdP supporting users from an organisation providing education and research offerings above US 12th grade or equivalent grade in another country. |
| self sign-up | an IdP that allows users to sign themselves up to service provision with minimal checks or verification. |
| health | an IdP supporting users from an organisation offering health services. |