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The three traditional dimensions of the academic endeavor are: research & scholarship, instruction, and service. Candidates for the R&S Category are those low-risk Service Providers that are specifically designed to support some aspect of research and scholarship; SPs aimed to enable instruction or service do not qualify for this category, even if they are intended for use by academics. Likewise, SPs that provide generalized services that have been or might be adopted for use in support of research and scholarship activities, but whose primary purpose is not research and scholarship, are not included in the R&S Category. Because of the risk involved, SPs that engage their subjects in experiments that require specific oversight are not eligible for the R&S Category.
Whether an SP operator is commercial or non-commercial is not relevant to eligibility for the R&S Category, nor are any other aspects of how the service is implemented or operated, beyond the specific requirements noted below. It's all about purpose.
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InCommon has chosen to introduce service categories in a conservative way, by focusing narrowly on services purposed for research and scholarship, in order to make implementation as straightforward as possible, and limit the range of concerns to be as specific as possible. Other service categories may be defined in the future for other purposes.
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