A SHORT HISTORY OF REFEDS
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Nicole Harris, REFEDS Coordinator number 2
VAMP, 7th September 2012
IN THE BEGINNING…
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IN THE BEGINNING…
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FEDERATION LANDSCAPE
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5498 entities registered within 34 federations
HOW WOULD I SUMMARISE OUR EXPERIENCE?
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OTHER PROBLEMS?
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HOW WE LEARNED TO STOP (TALKING) AND LOVE THE BOMB
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REFEDS EPIPHANY, 2010
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• If we want stuff to happen, we need:• Money;• Workpackages;• Decision Makers;• Minions; • Focus.
• From 2010, REFEDS has been funded by several NRENS / FEDERATIONS to help carry work forward.
• Has established a steering committee, plans, reporting.
• Is helping to make change happen.
REFEDS AS A VO
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BEING AN SP ADMINISTRATOR
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https://tnc2012.terena.org/core/presentation/106
TERENA AS A SERVICE PROVIDER
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SORRY
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WHAT DOES REFEDS DO?
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REF1: Raising the Profile of REFEDS.REF2: Barriers to Effective Federation Use.REF3: Boundary Solutions.REF4: Federation Harmonisation.REF5: Interfederation.REF6: Identity Assurance.
BARRIERS – FEDERATION POLICIES
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Wouldn’t it be great if these were standardised and simplified?
REFEDS POLICY REVIEW
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• Painstakingly taking apart every clause in every federation policy.
• Mapping these to generic content ‘blocks’ and ‘elements’ within each block.
• Making recommendations about structure and unnecessary language.
• NOT a legal review.
• Working with GEANT on a lite version of a policy template.
PEER (1)
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Federations have a variety of roles relating to the management of metadata:
• Metadata Registrar;• Metadata Aggregator;• Metadata Publisher.
As well as fulfilling other roles:
• Technical support;• Auditor / Vetting; • Infrastructure. Etc.
UK FEDERATION METADATA AGGREGATION
18http://iay.org.uk/blog/2012/08/uk-federation-metadata-aggregation
PEER (2)
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• A metadata registry – a bucket;
• Can be used as a registry for an individual federation;
• Can be used as a registry for multiple federations;
• Sps only have to register and maintain in 1 place;
• Federations can still accept members, but fetch metadata from another place;
• Federations can parse, enhance, mangle metadata as they wish once fetched.
PEER (3)
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PEER TO REEP
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• REEP will be a service instance of PEER run for research and education federations and their entities.
• Pilot for 2012 / 13.
• Proof of concept to see if federations and entities can cope with this work flow.
• Follow REFEDS or your federation for more information.
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Questions?