JISC

Federating the Next Generation

Abstract

Federated Access won't work without good institutional Identity Management  - starting with the policies that determine exactly who is a 'member@somewhere.ac.uk'  - but getting considerably more complex later!  However, it's still proving hard for some ICT directors to convince vice chancellors, principals and funding committees of this.
 
JISC has responded by commissioning an Identity Management Toolkit to support ICT directors and staff in making the case, and then starting and supporting practical institutional projects. The Toolkit is being produced by a partnership between Bristol and Cardiff universities, Kidderminster College and the LSE, backed by UCISA, RUGIT and JISC, and will be published with launches at the JISC and UCISA annual conferences in March 2010.

The Toolkit in production is being tested by projects at Kidderminster College and the University of Bristol. Both of these institutions had already seen a need to review, improve and integrate their Identity Management policies, practices and systems.

This presentation will give an outline of what the finished Toolkit plans to include and will invite feedback from attendees on what it should include.
 
Further information about the Toolkit is at www.identity-project.org. 

(if you are attending John's presentation please print out and complete the Identity Management Toolkit Survey - attached below)

Presenter

John Paschoud is the InfoSystems Engineer and Projects Manager at the Library of the London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE). The Library Projects Team which he heads undertook the original evaluation for the UK JISC of potential new Access Management technologies, recommending that attention should be focussed on the SAML standard and the Shibboleth implementation by Internet2.

The Team subsequently undertook a similar evaluation for SURF in The Netherlands. LSE had the first operational Shibboleth installation outside of North America, and the Library Projects Team has been fully involved in subsequent JISC programmes to develop a new Access Management infrastructure for UK education. John is a member of the UK Federation Technical Advisory Group, and is also involved in liaison on behalf of the UK Higher Education community with national bodies developing Access Management infrastructures in other countries.

He was seconded as a member of the JISC Outreach Team supporting institutions, publishers and technology vendors in their adoption of Federated Access Management, was responsible for part of the JISC-funded Identity Project, developing models for auditing Identity Management practices in HE institutions, and is currently managing the JISC Identity Management Toolkit project.