*MACE-Dir Conference Call* January 5, 2004 *Participants* Keith Hazelton -- Wisconsin (chair) Brendan Bellina -- Notre Dame Scott Cantor -- OSU Nadim El-Khoury -- North Carolina Renee Frost -- Michigan/Internet2 Paul Hill -- MIT Steve Olshansky -- Internet2 Todd Piket -- MTU Barry Ribbeck -- UTHSC-H Ann West -- EDUCAUSE/Internet2 Nate Klingenstein -- Internet2 (scribe) *Discussion* There was discussion at the outset of the call of holding a BoF focused on practical group deployments on campuses. This idea had a lot of support from participants. The localDomainPerson survey has had roughly 20 responses so far, and Brendan is looking at ways to process the results. White papers or future development efforts may emerge from these, and he encourages more submissions to get a full spectrum of responses. The survey may be found on the MACE-Dir web site at http://middleware.internet2.edu/dir/. CourseID & Information Models Another Internet2 Middleware working group that has been pursuing a tangential goal to MACE-Dir's work is the CourseID effort, located at http://middleware.internet2.edu/courseid/. Instead of being focused on coming up with a common reference system for traditional courses, they are looking at the development of a course ID system for online courses conducted in a common virtual space. While obviously not a "person", this sort of information will need to find a home somewhere. "It's a funny beast," said Keith, and the more he thinks about it, the more he thinks "it doesn't fall under MACE-Dir's stuff." There will be a draft released soon and undoubtedly more discussion about any possible role MACE-Dir and eduPerson may play with it. The question of CourseID led to general discussion about the information model that MACE-Dir works under. Scott's general response is that he thinks that IMS's information models are "pitched reasonably," but noted that his views on these issues are generally pragmatic. Keith wasn't sure what would be the best way to define this model anyway, suggesting offhand that a "UML-type thing" might suffice, but wanted to solicit opinions. Shibboleth and other projects have encouraged MACE-Dir to reconsider its purpose and scope in life. Keith reflected that there is a "good, strong core of LDAP in this group, but other people keep shoveling other kinds of work our way because it's not theirs." He encourages people to bring other expertises to MACE-Dir to help the group understand where it should draw its boundaries and how it can best interact with and aid other efforts. MACE-Dir & Active Directory Microsoft's AD systems offer MACE-Dir another chance to expand its focus from the traditional LDAP base. Keith has sensed and heard from the community that there is a growing presence, and wanted confirmation from the group that it needed more attention. There may be an opportunity for a more recipe-style document that describes how to build an enterprise Active Directory for higher ed; John Paschoud of the London School of Economics is working on a roadmap in this style and has had some correspondence with Keith. Keith proposed that this issue be brought up at CAMP, and that this sort of document could be included in an NMI release after being reviewed by or vetted through MACE-Dir. There could also be an opportunity for a presentation along these lines at a regional EDUCAUSE meeting. Barry noted there are other scaling questions and issues about how well AD could be integrated with other systems, and a discussion of leveraging AD using an enterprise directory might be useful as well. [AI] Keith requested an unassigned action item to find an eduPerson LDIF known to work under AD and deliver it to Paul. *Action Item* 1. Keith requested an unassigned action item to find an eduPerson LDIF known to work under AD and deliver it to Paul.