I'm fowarding this invitation on behalf of Steve Carmody; it describes some current work on better interfacing the Shibboleth authorization system with EZProxy, and invites interested institutions to particpate in a pilot effort.

Clifford Lynch
Director, CNI
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Good afternoon,

I'm writing to invite you to participate in the upcoming Shibboleth/EZProxy pilot with the InCommon Library Collaboration Group and join our kick off call on March 20th at 1:00 pm EDT.

Our previous work (Phase 1) involved librarians and central IT staff from six US-based campuses and is outlined in our wiki: https://spaces.internet2.edu/display/inclibrary/InC-Library. Because of the large number of licenses in place at libraries, it was assumed that a flash cutover to Shibboleth was impossible; instead, the group assumed that a hybrid approach (involving Shibboleth and a product such as EZProxy) would be in place for some time. The group concentrated, instead, on moving 90+% of licensed-site traffic to Shibboleth and providing added value to on-campus users of Shibboleth-enabled resources.

Now the group is inviting institutions interested in implementing this solution -- and working with others to make it better (Phase 2). Participating schools will be deploying and testing -- probably in a stepwise fashion, and within their production environments -- the hybrid approach identified in Phase 1.

In the next phase, participants will be actively exploring

1) how Shibboleth and EZProxy can be combined to create a more reliable, functional, and transparent environment for students, faculty, and librarians, and

2) new ways of providing an SSO experience across a wider variety of resources.

For more information on participation and call information, see the wiki page linked above.

Best regards,

Steven Carmody
Brown University
Shibboleth Project Lead
Steven_Carmody@brown.edu