Congratulations! You've completed Putting things into Gear - Get Going with InCommon Federation.  Here are some additional things you should consider doing to make sure you and your user community reap the full  the benefit of being a part of the InCommon Federation.

Keep Current

The InC-Ops-Notifications@incommon.org mailing list is used by InCommon Operations to send important notifications about modifications to the metadata generation system, service interruptions, and any other important technical announcements as they occur. All official InCommon Site Administrators are automatically subscribed to this list as a requirement to participation in InCommon services. Any other technical contacts may also subscribe; it is expected that Site Administrators will coordinate with others in the institution to ensure that these announcements get to the right people.. 

Participants@incommon.org is also highly recommended for anyone who should be kept abreast of general announcements related to InCommon. See InCommon Mailing Lists for how to subscribe, as well as other lists covering general announcements, as well as discussions of collaboration, implementation, and technology related to InCommon.

Internet2 convenes two conferences, each on a yearly basis. They are great ways to meet your peers and to learn first-hand about current activities related to InCommon.

• Internet2 Global Summit, held in the Spring, is a leading forum to support and drive the advancement of research and education, spur next-generation innovation and accelerate global discovery. The Summit convenes CIOs and other leaders from institutions around the world in an environment of open engagement, free exchange, partnership and collaboration.
• Internet2 Technology Exchange, held in the Fall, is a premier technical event in the global R&E community, convening the community’s technology visionaries—including chief technologists, scientists, engineers, architects, operators and students from around the U.S. and the globe.

Recommended Certifications

Certifications facilitate trust and streamline access decisions by adding tags to the federation metadata for IdPs and SPs that have complied with specific criteria. The following certifications will likely be valuable for many of your IdPs and SPs.

• The Research and Scholarship (R&S) Entity Category streamlines access to the growing list of federated resources that support research and scholarship by faculty, students, and others have need for those resources. R&S-certified Service Providers comply with speicfic standards for privacy protection and operational maturity, and request only low-risk identity attributes from IdPs.  R&S-self-certified Identity Providers are configured to release those low-risk identity attributes to R&S-certified SPs without further institutional approval. If your institution operates such an SP, obtaining R&S certification will facilitate access for its users worldwide, and asserting R&S certification for your IdP will allow R&S-certified SPs to streamline access for members of your community. See How to Apply for the Research and Scholarship (R&S) Entity Category for more information.
• The Security Incident Response Trust Framework for Federated Identity (SIRTFI) is an international standard to enable the coordination of incident response across federated organizations. SIRTFI provides a framework for effective incident response collaboration among federation and interfederation participants. One compromised account can create a security problem for a multitude of services across the interfederation community. When an organization complies with the SIRTFI framework, it agrees to participate in a federated incident response process.  SIRTFI stipulates high-level practices and procedures, and identifies organizations that are capable of participating in a federated incident handling process. Federation participants that comply with SIRTFI are marked in the federation’s metadata, raising the bar for operational security across federations. See Asserting SIRTFI for more information.

Other InCommon Services

InCommon offers other services in additon to the federation, including the InCommon Certificate Service, eduroam, and ithe InCommon Assurance Program.  See InCommon for information about other InCommon services and much more.

Community Engagement

Get involved! As described in InCommon Community, InCommon is operated "by and for" its community, so there are many opportunities to participate at various levels of commitment in the creation of InCommon's future.

• Working groups are generally the best place to start; participation is usually open to all interested parties. Many of InCommon's governance and advisory groups rely on time-bounded working groups to address various issues of current interest. Your time commitment is generally an hour-long conference call every week or two, plus whatever additional time you choose to contribute according to your specific interests. See Trust and Identity Working Groups List for current working groups; new groups are announced to the participants@incommon.org mailing list. 
• InCommon has standing advisory groups with more formal membership criteria and processes. Solicitations for new members are generally announced on the participants@incommon.org mailing list. See the list of advisory groups' web sites at InCommon Community Leadership for more information.
• REFEDS (the Research and Education FEDerations group) is the voice that articulates the mutual needs of research and education identity federations worldwide. The group represents the requirements of research and education in the ever-growing space of access and identity management, working with and influencing the direction of other organisations on behalf of our participants.REFEDS participants are from a wide range of backgrounds, but all share an interest in developing access and identity management technology, policies and processes. Many participants represent national identity federations and many come from National Research and Education Networks (‘NRENS’).