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Abstract

The Australian Access Project is a DEST-funded project to implement a trust federation for Australian higher education and research. Macquarie University is leading the Shibboleth component of this project, building on the existing testbed federation and development work conducted in the Meta Access Management System (MAMS) project (also funded by DEST). The Shibboleth software was developed by Internet 2, and provides a mechanism for “Identity Providers” to securely share identity attributes with “Service Providers” to allow for access to protected resources, collaborative workspaces and other shared services. The MAMS project also developed a Shibboleth-based “Virtual Organisation” system (“IAMSuite”) to allow for the creation and management of distributed research teams, including access to protected resources and services. This presentation provides an overview of work conducted within the MAMS project, an update on the progress of the Shibboleth component of the AAF, and the use of virtual organisations (based on IAMSuite) within this trust federation.

About the speakers

James Dalziel is Professor of Learning Technology and Director of the Macquarie E-Learning Centre Of Excellence (MELCOE) at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. James leads a number of projects including: LAMS (Learning Activity Management System), including roles as a Director of the LAMS Foundation and LAMS International Pty Ltd; MAMS (Meta Access Management System), a national identity and access infrastructure project for the Australian higher education sector; RAMP (Research Activityflow and Middleware Priorities), a project investigating open standards authorisation and e-Research workflows, and ASK-OSS (the Australian Service for Knowledge of Open Source Software), a national advisory service on open source issues for the Australia higher education and research sector. Prior to his current roles, James helped lead the COLIS (Collaborative Online Learning and Information Services) project, was a Director of WebMCQ Pty Ltd, an e-learning and assessment company, and was a Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Sydney.

Neil Witheridge holds a Masters of Engineering Science degree from University of Sydney, Australia, and has 20+ years experience working in software engineering for government and commercial R&D organisations. Neil joined Macquarie University in 2004 as Project Manager for the MAMS Project, a national identity and access infrastructure project for the Australian higher education sector. Neil is currently the Program Manager for the MAMS Project.

Dr Aizhong Lin obtained his Ph.D at University of Technology, Sydney in 2005. He is currently a research coordinator at the MELCOE (Macquarie E-Learning Center Of Excellence) of Macquarie University. His research interests include Web and Grid authentication, authorization, and collaboration; virtual organization; trust management; Peer-to-Peer Web service integration, and software agent. His research and development achievements include IAMSuite (Identity and Access Management Suite), AbWSIP2P (Agent-based Web Service Integration on Peer-to-Peer network), AbEPMS (Agent-based Emergent Process Management System), and about twenty published papers and book chapters.