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 NameFederation X
OTRS Ticket Number

TT#2024031934000941

eduGAIN Candidate Process

StepsRequirementsActionsOwnerTimeframeNotes
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.

  • Organise meeting with federation, eduGAIN Secretariat, eduGAIN BD and other relevant parties
  • Add federation to edugain-discuss mailing list and eduGAIN Slack workspace
  • Ensure a formal ticket is open for the federation application in OTRS
  • Set up candidate profile on wiki to track progress

BD



Sec




Set up meeting within 2 weeks of receiving request


ticket
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.


https://technical.edugain.org/joining_checklist

  • Contact email
  • Security contact
  • Management contact
  • Signed declaration
  • Metadata source
  • Signing certificate
  • Governance delegate and deputy
  • Federation website
  • Federation policy
  • Federation MRPS
  • Contact OT to add federation as a candidate on the eduGAIN website
Sec / OTTBD - 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.
  • Undertake review of federation documentation
  • Initial feedback from the eduGAIN Secretariat on documentation review
  • Organise meeting to discuss feedback if appropriate

Sec


4 - 6 weeks
Step 4: Technical reviewThe 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.
  • Work with OT to ensure certificate is correct
  • Review of metadata against validator checks
  • federation metadata should run with no errors for the period of time taken to complete the candidate assessment
Sec / OTConcurrent with Step 5 & 6
Step 5: membership review of federation documentationAs 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.
  • Announce review on edugain-discuss and edugain-sg mailing lists
  • Invite comments to made on appropriate wiki page
  • Run review process for a period of 4 weeks
Sec4 weeks (or 2-3 weeks for assessment + 1-2 weeks for the applicant to process the feedback?)
Step 6: votingFormalised vote for membership acceptance
  • Prepare vote in Zeus
  • Prepare voting record page on wiki
  • Run vote for period of 2 weeks
Sec2 weeks
Step 7: formal registrationThis final step ensures that the candidate is able to fully utilise the eduGAIN service after the community vote is successful.
  • Liaise with OT to update federation from candidate to member
  • Add federation to edugain-sg mailing list
  • Add federation to eduGAIN reporting tool
Sec

eduGAIN New Candidate Assessment Feedback

Assessment Period: DATES

#Document (Policy / MRPS)Document line / referenceProposed Change or QueryProposer / Affiliation
#1Policy / MRPSgeneralFor the outsider it is not clear what the name of the Identity Federation is. This should be made clear on the front page of the both documents.Casper Dreef / eduGAIN secretariat
#2PolicyIntroductionLinked to the aforementioned and referring to the following text:

"For EthERNet, the participation in the EFIS is a service among other services provided to Education and Research community"

we would suggest to please clarify and  simplify it, in something in the lines of "EFIS - as an indentity federation - is a service provided by EthERNet".

We suggest to make a clear distinction between the Federation Operator (EFIS) and the NREN (EthERNet) throughout the document.

Casper Dreef / eduGAIN secretariat
#3PolicySection 3.6change "Service Description" to "the Federation Policy"Casper Dreef / eduGAIN secretariat
#4MRPSSection 2Paragraph 2 - typo. "updates"Casper Dreef / eduGAIN secretariat