Start date: 1 May 2004
End date: 31 December 2004
Funding programme: Core Middleware: Technology Development programme
JISC theme(s): Access management, e-Administration
Introduction
Most institutions generate basic corporate information that can be used to identify a person's role or roles within the organisation. However, this is unlikely to include ‘finer-grain’ groups such as tutor groups, laboratory groups, research groups, and the more ad hoc groups. A facility to hold groups information centrally whilst devolving the management of such 'fine-grained' and ad hoc groups to their appropriate owners could bring many benefits. For instance, by storing this rich groups information centrally, many information systems (e-mail lists, calendar groups, portal profiles, etc.) could gain access. It could also provide a basis for a central authorisation system. Finally, by storing 'fine-grained' groups information centrally it could also be possible to use the information to provide the basis for inter-institution authorisation. This is becoming increasingly important in areas such as eScience where large resources are being shared across institutions.
Aims and Objectives
The Groups Manager project's aim is to contribute to the Internet2 MACE-Dir-Groups working group - ‘Grouper’ project, with an objective being to ensure that it can meet the needs of UK HE and FE institutions.
Project Methodology
Initially, the project will develop a groups requirements specification for UK institutions. The project will also provide analysis and applications development expertise to create a web application to provide a groups management user interface for the Grouper project. Finally, the project will implement the Grouper toolset and provide feedback regarding experiences gained during the implementation.
Implications / Deliverables / Stakeholders
It is hoped that the Groups Manager project could provide benefits within an institution by allowing the sharing of 'fine-grained' groups information for the benefit local systems such as portals, intranets, mailing lists, and calendar groups. Nationally, it is hoped that the Groups Manager project will help to make available a facility that could be used to provide a vital component for the identification of a user's roles when authorising access to resources that exist outside of an institution's infrastructure.