Hi,
I'm currently in Brum at the JISC Shibb 2 installfest - yesterday was the 'Federated Access: Future Directions Day' which was a very interesting event. But, the most disturbing news, which I hadn't realised before is that as from immediate effect the JISC High-heid-juns are closing down the Access Management programme! There are a number of us here who think this is premature. Ok, yes, we've got FAM launched in the UK, but it seems to me like taking a 3 day old baby and saying "there you are, you're born now, off you go a make a living" and shoving it out the hospital doors. Things are still very much in their infancy, some have managed to get a start but there are many who are only just getting up steam to get started - pulling the plug now is going to leave many sites in the lurch with no "official" support or direction. At this stage in the transition from Athens to FAM we really don't need to be left high and dry.
If you feel like we do then we need to start making a fuss, my suggestion is have a word with your directors and ask them to pass this to UCISA to put pressure on JISC - we need to keep the programme going at least another two years to give people a chance to transition properly. And the whole access management thing is a load bigger than just the transition from Athens - many prominent analysts are going on about "Identity" being the new "most important thing", to just ignore it all now makes no sense whatsoever.
It's not too late if we make a fuss now.
Regards
Andy Swiffin
(what me, rock the boat? surely not!)
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