InCommon Technical Advisory Committee Charters Four Community Working Groups; Steering Charters One
Five new community working groups have formed to address specific issues related to InCommon programs and services. All members of the InCommon community are welcome to participate in these working groups.
Four of the five working groups are chartered by the InCommon Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) while one working group is chartered by the InCommon Steering Committee. The four groups chartered by the InCommon TAC are:
Alternative Identity Providers Working Group. This group will identify and assess strategies for smaller institutions to federate without necessarily having to deploy their own identity provider. This group meets every other Wednesday (starting August 20) and has a wiki space (https://spaces.at.internet2.edu/x/oQLkAg) and email list (alternative-idp@incommon.org).
External Identities Working Group. This group will investigate how to securely leverage external identities (e.g. those not provided by the institution) and how to best integrate such IDs with applications. The group meets every other Thursday (starting August 28) and has a wiki space (https://spaces.at.internet2.edu/x/-gTkAg) and email list (external-id@incommon.org).
IdP of Last Resort Working Group. This group will focus on login options for faculty, staff, and other users who need to access federated services but whose home organization does not deploy an IdP or will not release attributes to all federated services. The group will capture the requirements for an IdP of Last Resort (particularly for the Research and Scholarship category) and assess the trade-offs between this approach and that of using a social-to-SAML gateway. The group has not yet established a meeting schedule, but has a wiki space (https://spaces.at.internet2.edu/x/iwvkAg) and an email list (idpolr@incommon.org).
New Entities Working Group. This group will look at cases of entities in the InCommon metadata that may not be operated directly by InCommon participants, such as proxies or entities from other federations (via eduGAIN). The group has not yet established a meeting schedule, but has a wiki space (https://spaces.at.internet2.edu/x/mwvkAg) and email list (new-entities@incommon.org).
In addition, InCommon Steering has chartered the eduGAIN Policy and Community Working Group. This group will discuss InCommon’s participation with eduGAIN, which facilitates interfederation by international metadata sharing. Among other issues, the group will review potential changes to InCommon policy and legal framework in light of interfederation. While the group is restricted to invited participants representing certain constituencies, its wiki space is open and will include meeting notes, documentation, and other information (https://spaces.at.internet2.edu/x/XgnkAg).
Additional information is available from a slide deck used during the August 2014 IAM Online webinar (http://www.incommon.org/docs/iamonline/20140813_IAMOnline.pdf).