InFAMy! Infamy! They’ve all got it
in for me!or... what current trends tell us
about the future of ‘federated access management’ in education
Andy Powell, Eduserv
@andypowe11
FAM10, Cardiff5, 6 October 2010
Intro
where are we now.../ the working assumptions of the UK Federation have been with us a long time/ FAM (as we know it today) has an uncomfortable fit with the wider web we see around us/ arguably better fit with ‘enterprise’ solutions?/ but discomfort of institutions as ‘enterprises’
Financial pressure
image: swamysk @ Flickr
financial pressure...
/ budget cuts/ job losses?
/ institutional and national ‘business
cases’ will become more critical
/ might argue that institutions will
become more enterprise-like
/ ...but think this will be very resisted
Outsourcing
image: M i x y @ Flickr
outsourcing.../ e.g. Google mail/apps/ the ‘new normal’/ for students currently/ but why not for staff?/ at what point is ‘identity’ also outsourced?
Expectation mis-match
bjornmeansbear
expectations.../ the mashable experience
/ user - privacy/ provider – terms & conditions
vs. day-to-day practice
image: Axel Bührmann @ Flickr
Mobilemobile.../ by <insert date here> mobile access to internet will have overtaken desktop access/ mobile devices may or may not become the primary route to learning and research – but they will play a bigger part/ what is the user-experience of SAML like from an iPhone app?
Open agendathe ‘open’ agenda.../ open source –
interesting tension withfinancial
pressure above/ open access – impact on the primary use-case for
FAM?/ open science
/ OER/ ‘open’ doesn’t mean
‘access management not required’
but it might change the nature and positioning of
the requirement?image: dullhunk @ Flickr
PLEpersonal learning environments
(PLE).../ a more open
approach to provision of learning technology
/ letting the learner (and the lecturer)
construct their own VLE using external
services of their choice
/ typically associated with ‘Web 2.0’
image: abardwell @ Flickr
OER and APEL
the changing nature of ‘course’ and ‘customer’.../ disaggregation of course delivery from accreditation/ changing relationship of students to universities/ increasingly ‘migratory students’/ changing customers of ‘academic’ publishers
Overseas students
Swansea Photographerimage: Swansea Photographer @ Flickr
globalisation.../ overseas students/ greater collaboration between institutions (nationally and internationally)/ research collaborations/ dealing with multiple federations
Usability
image: shbib @ Flickr
usability...
The portal problemusability.../ the portal solution.../ an attempt to control the user experience end-to-end/ but the web just isn’t like that/ WAYFless URLs are an abomination/ the portal is (part of) the ‘problem’!
image: dmolsen @ Flickr
Usability
usability.../ Kantara ULX work
/ some really interesting developments here/ but... scalability?
/ and... the ‘publisher’ problem
Consolidation
\/\//\R |_[]R[)image: andypowe11 @ Flickr
consolidation.../ of providers - Google, Facebook, ... (the ‘First bus’ effect?)/ and technology – OpenID, OAuth
Single sign-on
image: BuildArk @ Flickr
institutional login.../ single sign-on within
the institution
Conclusionsconclusions...
/ ‘education’ is a relatively small fish in a big pond
/ mainstream approaches will win (in the end) / for Eduserv OpenAthens ... Google are
as big a threat as Shibboleth (andthe same is true for Shibboleth)
/ current financial climatewill have an effect somewhere
/ institutions are probably becoming more enterprise-like but still not totally like
commercial organisations / tend to occupy an uncomfortable space
between the ‘enterprise’ and the ‘socialweb’ (e.g. PLE and open science)
/ the relationships between students (and staff)and institutions are changingimage: robotson @ Flickr
Thank youThank you
FAM10, Cardiff5, 6 October 2010
(with apologies to Kenneth Williams and whoever owns the copyright on this image!)