2015-12-07

InCommon Steering Committee Meeting Minutes  - December 7, 2015

Attending: Mark Crase, Steve Carmody, Klara Jelinkova, Michael Gettes, Sean Reynolds, Von Welch, Michele Norin, Dave Vernon, Susan Kelley, Dennis Cromwell

With: Ann West, Shel Waggener

Action Items

(AI) Klara encouraged Steering members to review the list of services, the operations review, and the 2015 priorities and consider the priorities for 2016

Wisegate Votes

1. November 2, 2015 minutes approved

2. This resolution approved: "The InCommon Steering Committee approves to have InCommon to run a marketing study using the same firm that Internet2 used. We understand that participant data will be shared under an NDA/contract and will not be used or sold for other purposes."


Revised TAC Charter

The InCommon Technical Advisory Committee has proposed a new charter. The committee has had a lot of discussion and arrived at consensus on this proposal: https://spaces.at.internet2.edu/x/7QCVBQ

Steve Carmody reported that the TAC understands there will be changes coming in the next several months, with the development of TIER, the addition of a new Internet2 vice president devoted to trust and identity.

The previous charter was quite short, so it is difficult to quickly summarize changes. Steve pointed to the membership section, which defines the size of TAC and also adding three-year terms, a process for selecting leadership, and the addition of non-voting subject-matter experts.

Steve also noted that while Section 4 “Voting Requirements” outlines a formal voting process, but that TAC intends to continue with the group consensus decision-making process as outlined in the charter.

There was discussion about the intent to broaden TAC membership beyond R1 schools and also incorporating sponsored partners and service providers. TAC discussed including a list of constituencies, but did not include a specific list, so it wouldn’t inadvertently restrict things in the future.

TAC has sponsored a number of working groups over the last two years and has been successful in attracting new people who could represent some of the constituencies we’ve discussed.

Slate of candidates

Klara will formally provide the slate of candidates to Shel, who represents Internet2 as the member of the InCommon LLC.

Trust and Identity VP

Klara reviewed the Internet2 plan to hire a Vice President for Trust and Identity. The position description is public and the search committee has provided the names of two candidates to Dave Lambert. He plans to hire someone by the end of 2015.

Shel added some details. The addition of the VP will address a concern of conflation between NET+ and Trust and Identity. The intent is that Trust and Identity will focus on things we build, run and operate ourselves as a community. The Internet2 board sees the growth of InCommon as a major success for Internet2 and wants to help continue that by elevating this to the division level within the organization.

Steering extended their thanks to Shel for shepherding and expanding the presence of trust and identity within Internet2.

2016 Steering Activities

Klara introduced this topic, which extends the process started two years ago to document the goals and priorities for InCommon and outline areas of responsibilities.

Ann provided a written progress report on the progress toward the 2015 priorities. Klara also highlighted the budget overview provided, as well as the draft lines of InCommon’s business, and ta summary of the InCommon operations review that took place in the latter part of 2015.

Ann provided some additional details on the operations review. Nick Roy led a group through the review, which included InCommon staff, the Internet2 technical advisory group, and the Internet2 service management group, which manages the InCommon onboarding process. There are a number of areas that need to be formalized, including change management, decision-making, and other areas.

Klara encouraged Steering members to review the list of services, the operations review, and the 2015 priorities and consider the priorities for 2016. This will also help when it comes time to engage with the new VP for trust and identity.

Regarding the priorities, there was a question about user consent. Steve reported that this is part of the overall attribute release strategy that needs to be developed. The Shibboleth IdPv3 includes a way to store user consent decisions. One of the hard decisions is when an IdP should put a consent screen in front of a user and when not. The concern is to do so when appropriate but not too frequently. Ann added that Ken Klingenstein has NSTIC funding for approaches to user consent.

eduGAIN Update

There were a few bumps in the road with the notice of changes in the Participation Agreement related to some internal problems with data transitions to Salesforce. There also turned out to be problems in using MailChimp to send the email, which some organizations mark as spam. As a result, there was a re-sending of the email straight from Outlook, which went much smoother.

Other issues:

• There have been two webinars so far and another one scheduled for December 11. 

• In terms of feedback, we haven’t heard much, and nothing from sponsored partners.

• We have implemented changes in the Federation Manager so people can make technical decisions re: opt-in and opt-out.


This topic will remain on the agenda for the next two meetings.

Thank you for service

Two Steering members -- Mark Crase and John O’Keefe, have served the maximum two terms (six years) and will be ending their terms this month. Also, Chris Holmes completes his “regular” Steering membership, but has agreed to stay on as a legal and policy adviser. Klara and Shel expressed their thanks -- on behalf of Steering, InCommon, and Internet2 -- for their service.

Next Meeting - January 3, 2016 - 4 pm ET