Building Identity Trust Federations Conference Call
January 20, 2010
In attendance:
George Laskaris, NJEDGE.Net (Co-Chair)
Lee Cummings
Sujay Daniel, NJEDGE.Net
Renee Frost, Internet2
Mark Rank, U of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Mark Scheible, North Carolina State University
Garret Sern, EDUCAUSE
Craig Stevenson, WiscNet
Steve Thorpe, MCNC
John Toomey, North Carolina
Ann West, Internet2
George Laskaris
* Today's call focusing on K-12 federation issues, which has been raised often on these calls. Interested in gauging interest in the area and whether participants wish to hold specific calls dedicated to this topic, or perhaps have a spin-off group that reports back.
* Mark Scheible has been asked to lead us in a discussion on the topics we may wish to consider.
Mark Scheible (K12 and Federation Issues: 20 January 2010)
* Don't want to turn people off by restricting this to K-12. Instead, focusing on issues that apply to K-20 federations.
* Plan on going through what NC State encountered as they went about forming a K-20 federation.
* the participants included both public and private, community colleges and school districts. MCNC sponsored the task force looking into this.
Issues:
* We discovered that the different institutions technological capabilities were often very limited (federation and use of shibboleth). It wasn't much better with community colleges, even with a good training course on identity management.
* Attribute release policy needs to be reviewed. More of an issue with k-12 due to dealing with minors.
* Levels of insurance another issue. K-12 participants don't have gov't IDs, save for birth certificates. How are teachers and parents involved?
* Funding issue. Perhaps look at a regional AUP? This will depend on a state by state or federation by federation basis.
* Who will champion the K-12 federation? There may be different resources that focus on that population.
* Do you run identity provider at regional, school level? Who is providing identity on the back end? Some large school districts could probably stand on their own, while more rural would have a regional IDP.
* Tim – with Race to the Top, every school district on signed on to the need for learning objects which will require a federated ID
* Legal side of attribute release policy, who determines standards for service providers? ID Mgm back-end requires there's identity data attributes. Who determines who controls this access?
Q: Did you find when this topic was broached with dept. of public instruction were you able to get in buy-in?
A. According to the need, yes, but from who would carry that effort, no. The real issue is how much power they have in persuading school districts beyond normal legal requirements. Administrative issue would have to be worked out.
R. Same issue in NJ with "home rule".
Q2: Would K-20 federated issues be better suited in another group?
John Toomey: in regards to finding a champion for K-12 in a distributed environment, have you tried to move this up to the education committee in the legislature as an argument that this will help cut costs? There are also statewide associations of school boards.
Tim: We've struggled with the challenge in that there is not process for bringing these projects to the state education cabinet. If we don't have a solid business case, we can't move forward with decision makers. Perhaps have an innovation group?
John: this should be pushed at the governor's level for maximum impact.
Q3: Is anyone else who is not from NC, focusing on K-20 ID Mgm? At the EDUCAUSE conference there was interest at the university systems meeting on looking at K-20.
A. Morgan, U of WA: for several years we have had digital learning commons, focusing on access to licensed resources for K-12. There was buy-in in the broad sense, in thousands of accounts created for this purpose. The driver in this case was access to consortia licensing.
Q4: Who ends up being involved in this kind of effort when K-12 is involved? Higher ed will move forwards, regardless. This forum is the best resource for these discussions until there is a larger base of interest.
Agree there is not enough interest at this time, but we'll look at potential partners such as COSN. Note Shaun Abshere article written an article in 2007 with them that we can pull out. Ann will distribute. Perhaps get this on the agenda for COSN's meeting.
Others?
Internet2 K-20; Tim did a presentation at the I2 fall meeting, but questions what they can do beyond utilizing it and providing use cases.
Maybe as InCommon begins to grow and gain traction, there will be more overlap between higher ed and K-12 community.
Camp: June 21-23 in Raleigh, NC. The first program committee call is this Friday. Looking at having content for prospective InCommon members and upcoming operational issues, emerging policy issues, additional service providers. There is preconference seminar, so folks could meet before the official start of the meeting. No link available until February with more information. Perhaps have a K-12 breakout? Difficulty would be need for help with outreach. EDUCAUSE outreach is higher ed.