Building InCommon Futures Together

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A Community Trust & Assurance Board Hosted Discussion

March 7, 2024

About this session

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• Your Discussion Guides
• Albert Wu (I2), David Bantz (Alaska), Jon Miner (UW-Madison)�
• CTAB = Community Trust & Assurance Board of InCommon
• Represent the research and education community
• Enhance trust that enables sharing�
• We want to hear from you! & we’re taking notes: https://go.wisc.edu/ctab-future-together �
• Discussions

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Eras of Higher Education Computing

1984 (Connect!) <-------------------> 2004 (Convert!) <------------------> 2024 (Create!)

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Eras of Higher Education Computing

1984 (Connect!) <-------------------> 2004 (Convert!) <------------------> 2024 (Create!)

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Eras of Higher Education Computing

1984 (Connect!) <-------------------> 2004 (Convert!) <------------------> 2024 (Create!)

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A video generated by OpenAI Sora from a text prompt:

�A young man at his 20s is sitting on a piece of cloud in the sky, reading a book.

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About the InCommon Futures 2 Report

Landscape, Trends, & Opportunities

• New learning modalities requiring more fluid credentialing.
• Skills gaps and knowledge loss.
• Next-generation security protocols and solutions.
• Proliferation of commercial offerings and increasing pressure to adopt them.
• Demand for improved unification, automation, interoperability of IAM infrastructure.

5-Year Strategic Objectives

1. InCommon releases an evolved value proposition to the community.
2. Internet2 provides the InCommon membership community with technical recommendations for how to select, implement and maintain IAM infrastructure.
3. InCommon assembles an Innovation Group that convenes the community around emerging security protocols and proactively advises members on critical improvements and updates to IAM systems.
4. InCommon promotes product implementation and integration to increase engagement with Federation and the Trusted Access Platform.
5. Internet2 communicates about its product and service offerings in ways that allow for all InCommon audience groups as well as prospective members to find their own tailored pathway into Federation that is unique to their institutionʼs needs and constraints.

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Questions to Ponder (relative to your institutional mission and goals)

1. Who are your stakeholders? How can you manage appropriate trusted access for them?
2. How might you address gaps in needed skills?
3. How might you mitigate knowledge loss for managing access?
4. How do you support (and protect from exploitation) the explosion of new tools for communication and access?
5. How do you navigate the recent explosion of commercial offerings that may or may not be compatible with your institution’s values?
6. How can you deploy solutions to the needs above so that they provide cohesive support for your institution’s work and goals?

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Who do you serve? How do you serve them?

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How can you manage appropriate trusted access for them?

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Enabling access in the “I” era

Challenge and Opportunity:

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New learning modalities requiring more fluid credentialing.

• Students (on-site and on-line, full and part-time, degree program and not)
• Faculty (regular, adjunct, collaborators, visiting faculty, …)
• Employees, contractors, consultants, short-term guests
• Supporters, community members, Alumni, …

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How might you address gaps in needed skills?

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How might you mitigate knowledge loss for managing access?

Brain Drain

• Loss of staff with arcane skills (retirement, recruitment by others, ...)
• Burgeoning technical needs for small and shrinking staff levels
• Understanding and commitment to unique needs of higher education

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Challenge and Opportunity:

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Skills gaps and knowledge loss.

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How do you support (and protect from exploitation) the explosion of new tools for communication and access?

• OIDC, OAuth, “Zero Trust”, SAML, MFA, & many other technical innovations
• NIST, CMMC, GLBA, and many other requirements for operating

Challenge and Opportunity:

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Next-generation security protocols and solutions.

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How do you navigate the recent explosion of commercial offerings that may or may not be compatible with your institution’s values?

• Competing grandiose claims to provide “solution” sometimes hollow
• Urgency to do “something” can lead to expensive failures

Challenge and Opportunity:

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Proliferation of commercial offerings and increasing pressure to adopt them.

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How can you deploy solutions to the needs above so that they provide cohesive support for your institution’s work and goals?

• Integration: tools and services must work together
• Automation: manual updates frustrate, delay, and err
• Assurance: demonstrate providing access to all who need access and none who do not

Challenge and Opportunity:

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Demand for improved unification, automation, interoperability of IAM infrastructure.

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More Thoughts? Questions?

https://go.wisc.edu/ctab-future-together

• Who are your stakeholders? How can you manage appropriate trusted access for them?
• How might you address gaps in needed skills?
• How might you mitigate knowledge loss for managing access?
• How do you support (and protect from exploitation) the explosion of new tools for communication and access?
• How do you navigate the recent explosion of commercial offerings that may or may not be compatible with your institution’s values?
• How can you deploy solutions to the needs above so that they provide cohesive support for your institution’s work and goals?

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Session Abstract

Building InCommon Futures Together

A Community Trust & Assurance Board Hosted Discussion

This session is an opportunity to help shape the future of InCommon to address your institution’s needs and priorities; it is a follow up to Wednesday’s “InCommon Futures 2” presentation. The InCommon Community Trust & Assurance Board invites everyone to join in a community discussion of the Futures 2 initiative: What issues or concerns does your institution have for enabling trusted and appropriate access to services, both on campus and beyond? How could InCommon better support collaboration and trusted access to resources?

(to be submitted to I2 Events for publishing in the CX24 Program; remove from the deck once content is published in the CX24 program)

FYI, this is the session abstract for Kevin and Marc’s Tuesday session:��During this session, we present the final report, review the implementation timeline, and answer questions around the InCommon plan to standardize tools and services used by our community. Information will be shared with the community in advance of this session so a full discussion can occur and community engagement will be maximized.

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