DRAFT
Notes of a Telephone Conversation with Jeff Alderson, ConnectEdu
21 November 2008 and Observations
Summary
· Because of his contributions to the discussions at the October 7 EA2 Task Force Meeting Jeff Alderson, ConnectEdu, was asked to document his suggestions about a network to exchange academic data.
· In subsequent conversations with Jeff and LeAnn Coe, Vice President Strategic Initiatives, ConnectEDU, Jeff said he would be able to write such a document—which I labeled a general design.
· Jeff said he wanted the effort to be open—broad community discussion and implementations available as open source. He suggested:
§ Assistance from someone directly affiliated with a university. He gave Georgetown University as an example.
§ Coordination with the U.S. Department of Education (that had earlier announced intent to offer information services to colleges and universities using services oriented architecture).
§ Collaboration with the Kuali Rice project that is developing the infrastructure for services-oriented architecture in higher education.
§ Collaboration with PESC’s EA2 Task Force to ensure consistency with PESC standards, industry standards, and current practices
Although there had been some discussion of how such a data network could be implemented and the need for a business model, such efforts would be beyond but dependent upon this work.
Background
The EA2 (E-Authentication and Authorization) Task Force held a meeting as part of the PESC Summit held October 6-7, 2008 in Crystal City, Virginia. During the meeting, there was a discussion about exchanging electronic transcripts. Reference was made to an announcement made at the 5th Annual Conference on Technology and Standards, April 28-30, 2008 in Washington DC, where CEOs of several servicers processing transcripts suggested they would seek standards for exchanging electronic transcripts among servicers. Jeff Alderson confirmed further meetings had not yet taken place.
During the EA2 discussions Jeff was encouraged to describe a possible exchange network in a “white paper” that would describe the general design of such a network. This effort may also identify work that would need to be accomplished.
Earlier in the discussion several suggested that AACRAO (American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers) would be most qualified to advise campuses on the procedures for implementing levels-of-assurance (LOA) for student identification. Similar policy issues may be identified during a design initiative.
Earlier Conversations
After the PESC Summit I had talked first with Jeff asking about the schedule of the proposed meetings. Tentatively scheduled in August, the meetings had not yet taken place when we talked about the requested “White Paper.” Jeff said he was considering a general design that could be immediately extended into detailed design and then a prototype (a Meteor had done) or a working network.
We discussed the value of a network that would interoperate with the emerging RS3G network in the European Higher Education Area, Meteor, and the network designs described by the U.S. Department of Education in August.[1]
We had also talked about whether a director of electronic services would be useful, how that directory might be developed—we discussed the UDDI standard. (As Tim Bornholtz and I had earlier discussed. Tim is concerned about ongoing support of the associated open source software).
Jeff suggested we should talk with LeAnn Coe, Vice President Strategic Initiatives, ConnectEDU. He was encouraging ConnectEdu’s support of this effort.
The November 21st Conversation
LeAnn Coe said ConnectEdu would like to make such a contribution and believed it would, if developed as Jeff had suggested at the EA2 meeting, serve the higher education beyond the original specific application. She was concerned that a “White Paper” could be perceived by the higher education community as a contribution rather than something perceived to only advance ConnectEdu. I said Jeff’s comments at the EA2 Task Force had made it clear that ConnectEdu was interested in a network that everyone could use—the network would benefit other applications as well. Jeff further suggested any design should be consistent with emerging campus enterprise infrastructure. At the Task Force meeting he had said he realized such an open network would permit colleges and universities to communicate with any servicer [and with common standards, without a cost or delay to switch servicers] and even communicate among colleges and universities. At the Task Force meeting there were some references to Visa, MasterCard and Cirrus networks that operated independent from the firms using the network. Meteor and the emerging RS3G network are examples in higher education.[2] The transcript exchange sponsored by the University of Texas—the UT Austin Server [with 210,739 transaction sets exchange August 2008] is another example.
I said there have been several open source projects—uPortal, Sakai, and Kauli—where commercial firms, as partners, had made such contributions and were well received by the colleges and universities.
Jeff said he would be able to make such a commitment and hoped to have a draft late January or early February. He said he wanted to have community involvement. He thought some assistance from a university such as Georgetown University [Charlie Leonhardt is Chair of the EA2 Task Force and Common Solutions Group representative]. He also want to collaborate with the Kuali Rice and Student projects and the Postsecondary Electronic Standards Council (PESC) and, if possible, with the U.S. Department of Education. I said Randy Timmons, Sigma Systems Inc. CEO, and I had met with the Kuali Rice team. They are working on APIs (application programming interfaces) and would coordinate on SOAP messages and their content. (Many of the Kuali student system and Rice developers were involved in the uPortal and Sakai projects. They have experience working together and trust the intentions and work of others).
Observations
There are a number of reasons to believe Jeff’s efforts would be more successful than he imagines. Charlie Leonhardt opened the EA2 meeting with a list of initiatives that have achieved sufficient development and use to be incorporated into the network. Shibboleth has a stable and broadly functional release of their code. Europe and the U.K. have a substantial implementation of Shibboleth; the U.K. has an increasing use of Shibboleth by journal publishers—the same publishers of journals used in the U.S. Both U.S. higher education—Meteor and InCommon—and U.K.’s higher education are willing to adopt the latest version of the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technologies Guidelines for Levels of Assurance—that drives identification (vetting) of users, levels of physical and network security, and operational and audit practices. The Liberty Alliance has recently published implementation practices. The InCommon “community of users” is growing.
And there is direct communication among the implementers of the RS3G course description (catalog), European transcript (Bologna process), and credit transfer data exchanges, PESC transcript standards, and the Kuali projects—though still informal. Information is being circulated among the participants All would like to have common standards sufficient to have “plug-and-play” interoperability.
There will be invitations for Jeff to join these discussions. His mastery of the technologies, participation in the EA2 effort, and willingness to collaborate would be welcomed.
Jim Farmer 4 22 November 2008
[1] For more information see Tim Bornholtz et al, “U.S. Department of Education Sketches Path to “Right-time” Processing,” PESC Standard, September 2008, page 4.
[2] RS3G—the Rome Student System Standards Group, is a working partnership of European software developers that currently have more than 50 U.S. universities exchanging academic information with clients in the 46-country European Higher Education Area. PESC hosted an industry and higher education institutions briefing by the RS3G team from Unisoluction GmbH 28 May 2008 in Washington DC. A copy of the presentation is available at www.immagic.com/eLibrary/ARCHIVES/GENERAL/PESC/P080528S.pdf