InCommon® for Collaboration Institute for Computer Policy and Law May 2005 Renee Shuey Penn State Andrea Beesing Cornell David Wasley Internet 2

2 InCommon  Evolved from the development of Shibboleth technology  The InCommon Federation is a Limited Liability Company (LLC) created December 2003  The purpose of InCommon is: To support a formal federation of organizations willing to cooperate in management of access to on-line resources in support of research and education… And to facilitate cooperation by means of an agreed-upon identity model, vocabulary, and common trust fabric.

3 InCommon, LLC Management  Governance Steering Committee – Carrie Regenstein - chair (Wisconsin- Madison), Jerry Campbell, (USC), Lev Gonick (CWRU), Clair Goldsmith (Texas System), Mark Luker (EDUCAUSE),Tracy Mitrano (Cornell), Susan Perry (Mellon), Mike Teets, (OCLC), Internet2 Member – Ken Klingenstein  Operations – Internet2 InCommon Certificate Authority –Issuing the enterprise certificate signing keys Identity proofing the enterprise (Registry Authority) Metadata and Certificate submission User Interface Hosting a WAYF (“Where Are You From”) interface Supporting campuses in posting their policies

4 InCommon Participants  Universities Dartmouth College Cornell University Georgetown University The Ohio State University Penn State SUNY Buffalo UC, Irvine UCLA UC, Office of the President UC, San Diego University of Chicago University of Rochester USC University of Washington  Other Organizations Internet2 OCLC  Commercial Providers Elsevier ScienceDirect JSTOR OhioLink

5 Examples of Collaboration  Facilitate agreed on interaction between/among libraries  Manage use of licensed information with commercial agencies (i.e. Elsevier, Science Direct)  Facilitate multi-institution research arrangements  Streamline interaction with governmental & other non-university agencies  Promote legal downloading of copyright protected files (i.e. Napster)

6 How InCommon Works The InCommon federation enables Higher Ed institutions to share information and resources between themselves and their business partners in a trusted, standardized fashion that protects privacy, respects copyright, and fosters collaboration and innovation. It provides the trust framework for organizations to make decisions about user access to protected resources based on privacy- preserving attributes presented by the user’s home institution. Trust fabric built on middleware Shibboleth

7 Etymology shibboleth  A word which was made the criterion by which to distinguish the Ephraimites from the Gileadites. The Ephraimites, not being able to pronounce “sh”, called the word sibboleth. See --Judges xii.  Hence, the criterion, test, or watchword of a party; a party cry or pet phrase. Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

8 Prerequisites  Official University Directory Linked to campus web-based common authentication system Holding reliable, trustworthy identity information about subjects  Federation: Trust Community Associations of enterprises that come together to exchange information about their users and resources in order to enable collaborations and transactions  Middleware: Implementing Technology Identifier Federating software Common language IT framework with focus on security and privacy policies

9 Shibboleth Architecture (still photo, no moving parts)

10 Glossary of Terms  WAYF = Where Are You From?  SHIRE = Shibboleth Indexical Reference Establisher  SHAR = Shibboleth Attribute Requester  HS = Handle Service  AA = Attribute Authority  URL for a glossary:

11 Collaboration & Technology: Shibboleth v  Open-source, standards-based, privacy-preserving federating software  Global development InCommon National Science Digital Library SWITCH (Swiss Network) Finland, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Australia  Commercial information providers in production Elsevier “Science Direct” JSTOR Ohio LInk.  Growing international development interest providing resource manager tools, list software, etc. 

12 Future of InCommon Collaboration among several hundred participants Interoperation with Federal e-Authentication (eGov) Layered levels of authentication assurance Interoperability with state and/or regional federations “Gateways” with commercial federations And it’s all possible in higher education’s culture of technology, collaboration, and challenge!