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- GÉANT OER update and ICT-22 call proposal - Peter Szegedi
PS informed the TTC about a new call under the ICT programme (deadline - April next year), which is highly competitive, but relevant to possible continuation of the work that has been done so far in OER. At first, OER was a 9 month pilot that lead to a development of the aggregation engine and a portal, later picket up by GN4 - it is now a separate activity (SA8). It is expected to launch the OER portal by the end of the project. This area will not be funded in the 2nd phase of the GN4, but the service has more potential than a GN4 activity, so there is a need to look for funding elsewhere. PS is now working on creating a strong consortium, including commercials, libraries, universities that would create proposals - broader community needs to be involved. ICT is the closest opportunity to receive funding, however, there are other calls that are relevant and will be looked into.
VN suggested to get to know the reviewers and previously successful applicants.
VC: reminded to bring it to the attention of the GPPC.
- TF-CPR update - Laura Dunford
Task Force meeting was held in Cambridge in October. The members requested to have a clearer overview of other TFs and SIGs, on which LD gave a presentation. There was a brief discussion about a possibility that TF-CPR might have to become a SIG. Other discussions included Cloud Services (what is it that they need to know in order to be able to promote those services), raising the visibility of the training, maintaining websites and blogs, and the future of the PeaR community news (still generated in the old TERENA way).
One of the issues raised was user outreach - Cambridge office described some of their work, which made it clear that there are too many projects for a few people to cover. TF members took a tour of the NOC to better understand what they want to promote - Connect magazine article about NOC inter-operation is planned.
Reporting mechanisms of the work should be more coordinated in the future. Some of the ideas: 5 min update, quarterly reports, thematic updates, etc.
- REFEDS Update - Nicole Harris
REFEDS SC had a discussion about the VAT issue - due to REFEDS being recognized as a separate entity from GEANT, the Dutch tax authorities require REFEDS to pay VAT retrospectively. That leads to the cut of 20% and therefore a smaller work plan with less MM.
REFEDS SC are trying to look for ways to bring more sponsors in - Jisc and CESNET agreed to contribute, but more financing still needed. There is a possibility to move REFEDS to Kantara - this is also where the industry is sitting. Idea has been circulated for a while, but that never happened.
PSz: Could GÉANT look into possible solutions? Perhaps change the status of REFEDS like GLIF has requested (for example, become a TF or SIG)?
NC: SC wanted more information why it was decided, but GÉANT only provides a service for REFEDS, it is a separate global initiative. No intention to be
- TF-MNM - Nicole Harris
Decision has been made to let it run out next September, as the TF is effectively dead and the Chair has no time to do it.
Review of the slides on the Middleware issues - Peter Schober
PSc reviewed the work on open Middleware issues (action item 20150708-03). The issues can be split generally fall into 4 categories: "tired but did not work" (one of such attempts was community effort led by SURFnet, which proved to be not successful - perhaps the aims were not clear or it failed due to a general lack of interest) and "things that are alive", for example EduID.se and EduID.ch common idea to expand the concept of federations, including the schools and lifelong learning - that brings some aspects of provisioning and pre-provisioning. One of the proposals is to create a task or subtask in REFEDS (or similar).
- tried but didn't work
- given up on (for now, may revisit)
- currently being worked on (authorisation, e.g. operationable def of "academic"; entity categories; harmonisation of identifiers, attributes, data release, etc.)
- potential new/future work items
An example of "we tried this but didn't go anywhere" was the application domestication effort led by SURFnet, which proved to be not successful - perhaps the aims were not clear or it failed due to a general lack of interest. As for "given up on for now" maybe federated provisioning could be named, even though (partial) protocol and software support exists. Newer projects like eduID.se and Swiss edu-ID (expanding the reach of federations to also include schools/K12 and lifelong learning) have aspects of data aggregation and provisioning across federated institutions (though not across federations). PSc will possibly follow up with SWITCH and SUNET about extracting "lessons learned" from eduID-style efforts.For potential work items: Question of the right layer, e.g. institution (were we're not represented nor visible) vs. NREN. Multi-factor authentication area as The last category would be "things that we did not try" - those perhaps could be moved to the NREN level. Multi-factor authentication area is an example - can it be brought to Campus Best Practice? (Unless you're SURFconext where you can do things "in the hub"). Another idea is remote identity vetting for distant education could be a service, but it is hard to provide. Guest accounts is another problem , creating a framework that allows other academic institutions (located close to the distance leaners) verify identity. Guest accounts remains a problem for many (develop new technology or use existing one? Mention shutdown of the popular FEIDE OpenIDP per Jan 1st 2016) and proper authentication to mobile devices that is often used as the second factor (nobody is working on that. New issues are e.g. proper authentication to mobile devices (where entering complex passwords is hard and highly inconvenient). Their role as second authentication factor also has to be reviewed in cases where the mobile device is "all the factors" (i.e., it's being used as primary device to access resources, not as second factor to aid with secure authN on a PC/desktop/workstation).
VC: Campus Best Practices are funded under GN4-1 and will not be continued in SGA2 as of today. A concrete proposal could be picked up by the GCP. New training coordinator has been hired to increase the outreach and training within GÉANT.
VN: There is a need to discus these open issues somewhere. Vetting is for institutions and REFEDS is for higher up on the abstraction layer (federations), so no intention to discuss vetting there.
TTC will pick up the slides from Peter Sc.
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