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!)