1. Identity & Access Management InCommon Research and Scholarship
August 7, 2017
CIO Council
2:00 p.m.
Smith Center, 561

2. Meeting Purpose and Intended Outcomes
To discuss whether Harvard should decide to become an InCommon Research and Scholarship institution
Intended Outcomes
Recommendation from the CIO Council

3. Opportunity
Harvard is already federated with InCommon as an Identity Provider (IdP)
By deciding to also identify as an Research and Scholarship institution (R&S), Harvard can simplify access for Harvard scholars to other applications that are federated as R&S services.
What it means:
Minimal work by IAM to release Name, , Institutional Affiliation and Unique Identifier (EPPN) by default to any R&S Service providers
What it gets us:
Scholars instantly access participating services using campus credentials without administrator involvement
Eliminates the overhead of reviewing whether to federate with these providers on a case by case basis

4. Use Case: Access Other Institutions using InCommon R&S

5. Harvard Use Case IQSS wants Harvard to be R&S The Dataverse Project
Benefit:
Dataverse can be opened up to the world
Sponsors of the R&S Request:
Merce Crosas
James Cuff

6. Harvard’s Decision
CIO Council is being consulted to confirm releasing this limited set of data by default to InCommon certified R&S institutions is acceptable.
Potential Risk
Discussion/Mitigation
Harvard releases data to applications that it has not personally vetted
Data are not sensitive; tend to be exchanged by researchers already, or be public
If FERPA block exists, we need user consent
No attribute release to R&S for anyone with FERPA (Common practice in H.E.)
It is not crystal clear what the InCommon certification process entails; we must trust their process
Review who else is participating
Users would not realize their data are being released
Provide outreach and communication through Schools and departments, describing the benefits

7. Here’s How InCommon Describes Value Proposition:
“The immediate and most tangible benefit is that researchers and scholars on campuses that support R&S may seamlessly access a growing list of R&S services without friction or administrator involvement. In other words, the end result may be characterized as: Federation for Research and Scholarship that Just Works.
Many potential R&S services choose not to federate because IdP support for R&S across our campuses is spotty and uneven. We expect a threshold number of campuses to cause a "Cambrian Explosion" of valuable R&S services to appear in the InCommon Federation, which will spur collaboration and research in the US.
Continuing our participatory role in the global R&E community, InCommon has introduced an international version of the Research & Scholarship Service Category to the REFEDS community, which requires broad support from InCommon participants to be successful.”

8. Discussion and Close
For research community there is a sense of urgency to move towards this model
The approach (of case by case) is simply not scalable to the thousands of campus IdPs and thousands of SPs supporting research and scholarship that InCommon anticipates in the future.
List of institutions who are R&S Identity Providers:
Service Providers:

9. Thank you!