InCommon Steering Committee Meeting - January 5, 2015

Minutes

Attending: Klara Jelinkova, Sean Reynolds, Dave Vernon, Michael Gettes, Susan Kelly, Steve Carmody, Dennis Cromwell, Jacob Farmer, Chris Holmes, Sean Reynolds, Ken Klingenstein, Michele Morin, Mark Crase, Meliisa Woo, Pankaj Shah

With: Shel Waggener, Ann West, Steve Zoppi, Dean Woodbeck

Moved/Seconded/Approved minutes from December 1

Action Items

  1. Ann West, Steve Carmody, and Jacob Farmer will develop a proposed recommendation for Steering to adopt concerning the release of directory information, to be presented at the February Steering meeting.
  2. Steve Carmody will talk with Von Welch and develop a list of prominent R1 institutions yet to adopt R&S. Steve and Von will present this list and a recommended approach at the February Steering meeting.
  3. On a future call, Steering will discuss the potential for changing the InCommon Participation Agreement to directly address the question of attribute release.

New members

Welcome to Michele Norin (University of Arizona), Sean Reynolds (Northwestern University), and Pankaj Shah (OARnet).

Von Welch (director of Indiana University’s Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research) will join InCommon Steering as an advisor from the research community. Jacob Farmer has joined Steering as the new chair of the Assurance Advisory Committee

Did a round-robin of steering members to introduce themselves.

InCommon Operations Manager

Ann West was approved as InCommon Operations Manager by a 2/3 vote (via email vote).

Subcommittee Reports

No subcommittee reports at this time. Michael will distribute the summary of the Program Subcommittee to the Steering email list. Subcommittee rosters will be finalized in February

Attribute Release Policies

Steve Carmody discussed the progress of the Research & Scholarship category, which has more than 100 IdPs participating, but also the concern that 30-35 key campuses have not adopted the category and its attribute release requirements. Because of this, research services cannot be confident that all of their researchers and scientists can use federated access and are turning to other alternatives (like Google).

It was suggested that Steering become more proactive in this area. Possibilities are:

  1. Issue a statement on the importance of R&S and attribute release
  2. Develop a plan for identifying and contacting the CIOs at the 30-35 key institutions that have yet to adopt R&S
  3. Consider changing the InCommon participation agreement to specify mandatory release of certain attributes

There was also discussion about misunderstandings of FERPA as blocking release of directory information. There are statements from FERPA experts that release of attributes that coincide with directory information is legitimate and not a violation of FERPA. It was suggested that InCommon consider:

  1. developing a statement and sales package to deliver this message at key venues (EDUCAUSE, AAåCRAO, etc)
  2. make the recommendation to new participants, and communicate with existing participants, the need to release directory information

(AI) Ann West, Steve Carmody, and Jacob Farmer will develop a proposed recommendation for Steering to adopt concerning the release of directory information, to be presented at the February Steering meeting.

(AI) Steve Carmody will talk with Von Welch and develop a list of prominent R1 institutions yet to adopt R&S. Steve and Von will present this list and a recommended approach at the February Steering meeting.

(AI) On a future call, Steering will discuss the potential for changing the InCommon Participation Agreement to directly address the question of attribute release.

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