eduPersonAffiliation semantics –
a spin-off of eduGAIN policy
REFEDs 30.5.2010
Mikael Linden
CSC – Tieteen tietotekniikan keskus Oy
CSC – IT Center for Science Ltd.
The problem (or is it one?)
• eduPerson spec is not very specific on
eduPerson(Scoped)Affiliation semantics
– Federations have made (some) incompatible
interpretations
– Especially ”employee” and ”staff”
• presented in REFEDs in Rome
• another by Andrew on Tuesday @2 pm
Do we need ePA at all?
Case CLARIN
From: Dieter Van Uytvanck [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: 28. May 2010 18:22
To: Mikael Linden
We discussed this extensively, also with the CLARIN WP7 (legal
issues, licenses). It turned out that unless at certain point
we have full certainty about the reliability and availability
of the eduPersonAffiliation (or a variant of that) attribute it
does not make sense to use it within CLARIN. So if eduGAIN
could ensure the existance and the correctness of such an
attribute in all IdPs we would like to use it.
best regards,
-Dieter Van Uytvanck
Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, the
Netherlands
Could the semantics vary
federation-by-federation?
• SP admin would need to adopt to the semantics
that depend on the federation/IdP
– SP admin needs to learn the different interpretations
– But SP admin is not necessarily a federation geek
interested in studying the differences of (European)
federations
=> makes threshold higher for SPs to get confederated
• We should try to make eduGAIN easy for SPs
So, what is our plan?
http://doodle.com/me2xgh4ctgrypbg7
Publish
RECOMM
Don't
ENDED
harmonise
ePA
, but
semantics
obligate
and
Don't
federation
obligate
harmonise s to
federation
(Leaves
document
s to
burden on their ePA
document
SP side)
semantics
in web
on web
how they
(burden
differ from
on SP
it (burden
side)
on SP
side)
Introduce
a new
attribute
with welldefined
semantics
and make
it
RECOMM
ENDED
(burden
on IdP
side)
Introduce
welldefined
semantics
for ePA
and ask
IdPs to
migrate to
it (burden
on IdP
side)
As the
previous
one, but
declare
"staff" and
"employee
" to be
unreliable
and
discourag
e their use
0
19
1
8
1
7
Summary
Q
A
1. Is this a problem?
Seems it is (CLARIN)
2. Do we need to fix it?
If we do, we should do it now when
eduGAIN is to be rolled out.
3. Can semantics vary fed-by-fed?
Maybe, but makes eduGAIN difficult
for SPs
4. What to do, then?
Introduce a new attribute (doodle poll)
5. To which schema?
Good question. Schac? Or is MACEdir willing to change eduPerson?
6. What is the new well-defined
semantics, then?
Probably need to go the long way and
ask at first what values we need. For
instance, is it necessary do make a
difference between staff and faculty?