Research and Scholarship entity category policy for UK federation Service Providers

Posted on Monday, 28 November 2016

About the Research and Scholarship (R&S) Category

Candidates for the Research and Scholarship (R&S) Category are Service Providers that are operated for the purpose of supporting research and scholarship interaction, collaboration or management, at least in part. Example Service Providers may include (but are not limited to) collaborative tools and services such as wikis, blogs, project and grant management tools that require some personal information about users to work effectively. This Entity Category should not be used for access to licensed content such as e-journals. More information can be found here: https://refeds.org/category/research-and-scholarship

How to apply for R&S for Service Providers with the UK federation

A UK federation member looking to obtain the R&S category for one of its Service Provider entities registered with the UK federation MUST do the following:

1. Ensure the Service Provider entity is a production SAML deployment that supports SAML V2.0 HTTP-POST binding.

2. Refresh federation metadata at least daily.

3. Provide an mdui:DisplayName and mdui:InformationURL in metadata (an English language version xml:lang=”en” is RECOMMENDED).

4. Provide one or more technical contacts in metadata.

5. MUST resolve issues of non-compliance within a reasonable period of time from when they become aware of the issue. Failure to do so WILL result in revocation of the entity’s membership in the R&S category, in the UK federation metadata.

An additional step (6) is required for Non UK Higher and Further Education Service Providers (i.e. Commercial Resource providers).

6. Demonstrate support of their R&S application from an existing UK federation Higher, Further education or Research member. This can be done by the provision of an email or letter in support of the application from a UK federation Management Contact (MC) at a Higher Education, Further Education or Research Institute member.

The email or letter must be sent to service@ukfederation.org.uk or UK federation, Jisc, Brettenham House, 5 Lancaster Place,London and must reference the Service Provider entity it is supporting. It is RECOMMENDED that UK HE /FE or Research Institute Management Contacts who provide such a letter inform their institutional Information Security officer before they do so.

The UK federation reserves the right to confirm the provision of support with the Management Contact. Entities bearing the R&S tag, imported into the UK federation via eduGAIN are not required to do step 6, however in the event that an issue is raised against that Service Provider by a UK federation member, the UK federation reserves the right to require step 6 and take additional measures if necessary.

Edited by AlexStuart on 19 December 2016, at 04:22 PM