When a new identity federation applies to join eduGAIN, the eduGAIN Secretariat and business development team will work closely with them to help them prepare and meet all the membership requirements. The following steps will be taken and will be used as a template to manage Candidate applications. Each "step" may run concurrently, depending the on the readiness of the federation.
| Candidate Name | Federation X |
|---|---|
| OTRS Ticket Number | TT#2021122234009094 |
eduGAIN New Candidate Process
| Steps | Requirements | Actions | Owner | Timeframe | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Step 1: Initial application meeting / readiness discussion | This initial meeting will talk the candidate through the joining process, get an understanding of the technical infrastructure of the federation and it's maturity and also share information about useful resources for the federation such as the eduGAIN website and wiki and the REFEDS resources. If not already familiar, federations will also be talked through the available document templates and the various eduGAIN tools that can be used for testing compliance and reviewing issues. |
| BD Sec | Set up meeting within 2 weeks of receiving request | |
| Step 2: Collect required information for membership application | There are a number of formalities that need to be addressed before a federation can become a membership candidate. These are known as the "joining checklist" and represent the core information that is held about each federation to enable metadata consumption and to start the trust building process. |
| Sec / OT | TBD - depending on maturity of federation | |
Step 3: eduGAIN Secretariat review of federation documentation | The eduGAIN Secretariat will undertake an initial review of the federation Policy and MRPS documents and may invite others to help support this process. The aim of this step is to help the federation identify any potential issues that might come up from the community review process and ensure step 5 goes as smoothly as possible. |
| Sec | 4 - 6 weeks | |
| Step 4: Technical review | The purpose of the technical review is to iron out any issues the federation may have with publishing and consuming eduGAIN metadata on a daily basis to ensure that the federation can run successfully with no / low error rate when membership is approved. |
| Sec / OT | 8 weeks (concurrent with other tasks) | |
| Step 5: membership review of federation documentation | As stated in the eduGAIN Constitution, the eduGAIN Steering Group (eSG) is responsible for: "Reviewing and approving the membership of new Federations". Step 5 and Step 6 support this requirement. |
| Sec | 4 weeks (or 2-3 weeks for assessment + 1-2 weeks for the applicant to process the feedback?) | |
| Step 6: voting | Formalised vote for membership acceptance |
| Sec | 2 weeks | |
| Step 7: formal registration | This final step ensures that the candidate is able to fully utilise the eduGAIN service after the community vote is successful. |
| Sec |
eduGAIN New Candidate Assessment Feedback
Assessment Period: 26 July 2022 - 23 August 2022
| Comment # | Document (Policy / MRPS) | Document line / reference | Proposed Change or Query | Proposer / Affiliation | Action / decision (to be filled in by candidate) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Policy | lines 87-88 | Looks like there is a missing bullet point before "Must pay the fees. Prices and payment terms are specified in appendix Fees." | Alex Stuart (UK federation) | We added the missing bullet point to updated document. |
| 2 | metadata | entityID https://idp1.azsciencenet.az/simplesaml/saml2/idp/metadata.php | This IdP asserts the SIrtfi assurance certification but does not have a REFEDS security contact (the contactType="technical" rather than contactType="other") | Alex Stuart (UK federation) | Changed contactType to "other". |
| 3 | MRPS | line 54 | "The member’s canonical name is disclosed in the entity’s <md:ANASİF> element " presumably should be md:OrganizationName element. | Alex Stuart (UK federation) | Updated the document and corrected the mistake. |
| 4 | MRPS | line 84 | "A member’s canonical name matches registrant information shown in DNS" presumably WHOIS | Alex Stuart (UK federation) | We accurately wrote this section again. |
| 5 | Policy and MRPS | lines 123-133 in policy, lines 120-121 in MRPS | The policy says "Each institution may take part with a single Identity Provider" and the MRPS says "Once a member has joined the Federation any number of entities MAY be added, modified or removed by the organization". Does one of your documents need updating? | Alex Stuart (UK federation) | We updated both of them and now they are identical. |