An InCommon Roadmap for NSF Cyberinfrastructure

Indiana University, Bloomington IN

Investigators

Abstract

An InCommon Roadmap for NSF Cyberinfrastructure Abstract PI: William Barnett The InCommon project describes activities to produce a guidance document for use by NSF Cyberinfrastructure (CI) projects, their researchers, their users, and campus policy makers, in adopting and using the technologies and policies that make up the identity federation among US campuses called InCommon. Working off existing InCommon documentation, this Roadmap document will focus as much on the motivations and policies as the technologies for joining and participating in the InCommon federation. The document will include advice to NSF as well. The document will be produced under the auspices of an editorial board of technical and policy experts with approval of a final version to be approved by the ACCI Campus Bridging Task Force. Metrics of success for the Roadmap document relate to increased membership and use of federated identity. These metrics therefore address quantitatively the criterion of Broader Impact. Intellectual merit is noted by the proposal as how to overcome the policy, technical, and social challenges in producing clear and concise guidance. In reality, a single expert will be doing the vast majority of work on this document. The creator of GridShib, along with the identified members of the editorial board, are highly qualified to produce a sound Roadmap. A key driver for adoption and use of this document will be in the motivations for use of InCommon, properly situated as the first thrust area. The proposal includes a detailed timeline and defines the three thrust areas appropriately. The process of using a stellar editorial board with required approval of the ACCI Campus Bridging Task Force ensures the release of a Roadmap that is both technically sound and fully responsive to the needs of CI-centric projects and capabilities of campus CI. If successful, this document will be a cornerstone for wider scale adoption and use of federated identity as defined by the InCommon Federation, the predominant trust fabric in existence today across academic campuses, while providing NSF a reference for the community in defining a path toward achieving the goal of shared CI.