Project Goals

There was a general discussion about setting goals and benchmarks for future work and setting out a detailed path for the working group.

Specifically, the working group agreed there needs to be a discussion about deliverables, a plan for developing those deliverables, and a timeline for completion. There are some natural benchmarks, driven by planned presentations, including EDUCAUSE and the Internet2 Member Meeting in October 2008, and the NASIG and ALA meetings in June 2009.

There seems to be consensus on what procedures are usable and what the working group would want to implement. Some of the issues discussed:

Testing / Issue Identification

• Outlining remaining questions related to proposed solutions and conducting tests to determine answers.
  • Pilot Test Strategy
• Expanding limited pilot projects to a broader test of technology
• with participants enabling more service providers.
  • Chicago currently testing Scopus
  • Washington/Chicago/Penn currently testing RefWorks
  • Washington currently testing Worldcat
• Making contacts with peers in Europe to share experiences and use cases.
• Additional Case Studies / possible participants?
  • CIC as Incommon Case Study (shared digital repository with federated access) - Bob
  • NJ Edge
  • Ohiolink 
• There are a number of email lists which may help identify likely candidates. It may be useful for members of this working group to monitor those email lists, gathering information about general trends and identifying people with whom we might collaborate.
  • EZProxy: http://www.oclc.org/us/en/support/documentation/ezproxy/list.htm
  • JISC: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=JISC-SHIBBOLETH-LIBRARIES
  • Shibboleth Users: https://mail.internet2.edu/wws/info/shibboleth-users
  • Educause Identity Management: http://www.educause.edu/IDMworkinggroup/928

SP Standards

• Identifying the common licensed library vendors (probably 15-18) that represent 80-90 percent of the traffic for most libraries. Determining whether those vendors are Shib-enabled (many probably are through the UK federation), working with those vendors to join InCommon, and promoting federating among these vendors and libraries.
• Advocating to service providers on standards needed to federate to make it easy for users.
• Advocating to service providers about the basic technology of federating and providing use cases.
• Developing best practices for content providers.
  • Adam Chandler reported that NISO (National Information Standards Organization) has been exploring something similar. He and Oliver Pesch of NISO are drafting a work item for NISO in this area.
  • SP Functionality Requests

Shibboleth Standards and requests

• Advocating to Shibboleth on standards needed to make it easy for users.
  • Shibboleth Functionality Requests

Documentation

• Developing information (such as white papers, use cases or other documents) on the hybrid Shibboleth/EZProxy solution to library access.
• Sharing case studies, documenting what works and what doesn't.
• Mapping the presentations (which are on the wiki) into more generic reports, suggestions and recommendations.
• Determining whether to open this group to a wider audience and, if so, when and how.
  • Establishing wider affiliation (Educause, NISO, CNI)
• Public Web Page
  • Why Should I?
  • Recommendations for Interested Institutions