August 2015 – SWITCH Identity Blog

Testing Alternatives to Shibboleth

The technical functions of a Swiss edu-ID service consist of two main building blocks: access management (AM) and identity management (IdM). Within the SWITCHaai federation, the core of the AM functionalities are provided by Shibboleth, while the IdM-processes are implemented at the universities with a variety of products.

While it is clear that the Swiss edu-ID has to be compatible with SWITCHaai, it is basically an open question on what product stack it should be based. Between November 2014 and January 2015 SWITCH conducted a request for information (RFI) to get an overview of the current AM (and partly IdM) products on the market. In the RFI it turned out, that both Shibboleth and Forgerock/OpenAM are valid candidates to build the AM functions of the Swiss edu-ID framework. Continue reading “Testing Alternatives to Shibboleth”

How to get the Organisation Display Name of an AAI User as “Free” Attribute

Have you ever wanted to show the organisation name of an authenticated AAI user in the web application protected by a Shibboleth Service Provider? For example on an event registration web page in order to see from which organisations users registered or – like in the screenshot below – to show the authenticated user himself with which – of potentially many – AAI account he has logged in?

Continue reading “How to get the Organisation Display Name of an AAI User as “Free” Attribute”

Keep your e-portfolio with Swiss edu-ID

An e-portfolio is often a high investment in time and effort. It’s the proof of a students study progress over the years (learning portfolio), a collection of knowledge, files and links, or perhaps a career portfolio containing all information and documents relevant for the CV.

Now it’s possible to keep and further develop an e-portfolio after studies with a Swiss edu-ID. Once the Swiss edu-ID is linked to a valid AAI identity a user will be able to migrate his/her e-portfolio to SWITCHportfolio (if LEAP2A compatible) and to access it also in the future with his/her Swiss edu-ID.