Nicole Harris, JISC Advance; presentation given at the OpenAthens seminar: Work smarter not harder with FAM. March 2011

1. The Problem with Federations Nicole Harris OpenAthens ‘Work Smarter, Not Harder’ Seminars March 2011

3. Images courtesy of: doug8888, ben-zen-photography, scissorfighter with some right reserved - Flickr.com

4. The Problem with Federations? A federation (Latin: foedus, foederis, 'covenant'), also known as a federal state, is a type of sovereign state characterized by a union of partially self-governing states or regions united by a central (federal) government. In a federation, the self-governing status of the component states is typically constitutionally entrenched and may not be altered by a unilateral decision of the central government. The United Federation of Planets, also known as "The Federation" is a fictional interplanetary federal republic depicted in the Star Trek television series and motion pictures. In those episodes and films, the Federation is described as an interstellarfederalpolity with, as of the year 2373, more than 150 member planets and thousands of colonies spread across 8,000 light years of the Milky Way Galaxy, and taking the form of a post-capitalistliberal democracy and constitutionalrepublic. A Federation is multiple computing and/or network providers agreeing upon standards of operation in a collective fashion. The term may be used when describing the inter-operation of two distinct, formally disconnected, telecommunications networks that may have different internal structures. The term may also be used when groups attempt to delegate collective authority of development to prevent fragmentation. Wikipedia, 28th February 2011

5. Not only Star Trek... Terran Federation in Blake’s 7 and in Starship Troopers Trade Federation in Star Wars Galactic Federation in Doctor Who The Federation in Shannara (Terry Brooks) GEEKS LOVE FEDERATIONS! Courtesy of pillowhead_designs on Flickr

6. Federations are like a pack of cards...

7. Club Rules Cards are meaningless without the ‘rules’ of the game Can be reorganised to have different meaning - different games But cards should be reusable? Courtesy of thesyesism on Flickr

8. PEER (not BEER) https://spaces.internet2.edu/display/PEER/Home

9. Hearts About giving people access Should institutions be attempting to ‘manage’ people? Logins for Life? Courtesy of thesyesism on Flickr

10. We first jumped on the OpenID bandwagon back in 2007 when it was seen as a promising way to make logging into websites simpler. What we've learned over the past three years is that it didn't actually make anything any simpler for the vast majority of our customers. Instead it just made things harder. Especially when people were having problems with the often flaky OpenID providers and couldn't log into their account. OpenID has been a burden on support since the day it was launched. -- 37signals drops OpenID support OpenID is theworst possible "solution" I have ever seen in my entire life to a problem that most people don't really have. That's what's "wrong" with it. Yishan Wong on Quora “You have one identity,” Zuckerberg emphasized three times in a single interview with David Kirkpatrick in his book, “The Facebook Effect.” “The days of you having a different image for your work friends or co-workers and for the other people you know are probably coming to an end pretty quickly.” He adds: “Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity.” No one's Facebook account is safe from hackers. Not even the social networking site's founder Mark Zuckerberg's! A fan page dedicated to the site's creator was hacked Tuesday. Seems like Zuckerberg had been so busy announcing protection measures for Facebook's users that he forgot to protect his own account.The Money Times

11. Celebrate your studentyness Courtesy of Barbro_Uppsala on Flickr

12. Adding Value Statistics Richer Attributes (JISC Collections) However... Courtesy of thesyesism on Flickr

13. The DPA of 1998

16. SPADES ARE ALWAYS TRUMPS Courtesy of thesyesism on Flickr

17. Do federations have a trump card?

18. Organisations like REFEDS offer fantastic new potential SAML is secure in more ways than one ? Offers clear advantages in education and research sector Federations continue to evolve

19. Thanks for listeningaccess.jiscinvolve.orgnicole.harris@jiscadvance.ac.uk