JISC Collections and EDINA to run UK federation

JISC Collections and EDINA will manage the UK Access Management Federation for Education and Research (the federation) from 1st August 2011. The two organisations will work in partnership to deliver the operation and support of the UK federation:

JISC Collections, as the legal entity, will act as the federation operator, managing member enrolment, training, reporting and promotion.

EDINA will continue to provide the federation’s technical and operational support.

With long-standing and positive history in working together to deliver value to UK research and education, JISC Collections and EDINA bring a strong track record of success working with library and academic support staff. Mark Williams access management co-ordinator at JISC Collections and Fiona Culloch UK federation project manager at EDINA will be managing the transition. Fiona explains, “We will be working to deliver a smooth handover so federation members do not need to worry about a break in their service. The team at EDINA who manage the metadata and provide technical support for the UK federation remain unchanged, so there will be no operational changes.”

JISC Collections will also be responsible for the enrolment of new members, both those who wish to join as service providers and those who wish to join as ‘identity providers’, typically institutions in education with staff and students. Mark adds, “This fits well with JISC Collections’ experience of working with both the publishing sector, to which it has been promoting the federation, and with experience in membership/agreement management in handling subscriptions.”

EDINA has acknowledged strengths in computing and service delivery as JISC-designated national data centre and as part of the University of Edinburgh, and its pedigree in relation to the federation is without peer and is internationally recognized. As with current federation operation, the new federation operators will continue to benefit from the close involvement of the EDINA-based SDSS Expert Group: this includes federation architects and Shibboleth core developers who have been actively involved in its development and operation and in the tools available to federation members since the federation’s formation.

Until 31st July 2011, JANET(UK) will continue in the role of managing operator, with the support from EDINA in its role as technical operator. Under that stewardship since November 2006 the federation grew into the world’s largest SAML-based academic access management federation, having over 840 members with over 1200 entities.

Further information visit http://www.ukfederation.org.uk/content/Documents/TransitionFAQ or email: service@ukfederation.org.uk