MAMS Project Overview
Introduction
In 2003 the Higher Education Information Infrastructure Implementation Steering Committee found there was a need to enhance the creation and management of information, improve access to information resources, and facilitate the discovery and dissemination of new information to researchers and institutions.
In response DEST has provided $12 million in funding to improve infrastructure, to be coordinated by the newly established Australian Research Information Infrastructure Committee (ARIIC). The initiative is sponsored by the Commonwealth Government of Australia, as part of its broader Backing Australia’s Ability Initiative which aims to provide an environment for innovation in the recognition that it is this innovation which will continue to be the driving force behind much Australia’s business, prosperity, economic growth and standard of living. For more information see the DEST Media Release, $12 Million For Managing University Information.
Macquarie University is the lead University on the Meta Access Management System (MAMS) Project.
This project allows for the integration of multiple solutions to managing authentication, authorisation and identities, together with common services for digital rights, search services and metadata management. The project provides an essential “middleware” component to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of Australia’s higher education research infrastructure. It will develop a new conceptual architecture which is capable of supporting multiple, independent models of (a “meta access management system” of “MAMS”), which is implemented locally within organisations, but with the potential for inter-institutional communication.
Background
The effectiveness of a nation’s research outcomes is now integrally linked to the quality of its information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure. While the foundations of this ICT infrastructure are hardware and networks, it is now clear that the software layer that sits immediately above this foundation (often called “middleware” or “common technical services”) is crucial to research effectiveness. Middleware (Internet2, 2003) is the “glue” that binds together hardware, networks, information resources, datasets, computing services and people so as to unleash the power of ICT for research.
Despite significant national investment in hardware and networks, under-investment in middleware has limited our national research potential. For too long, information resources and computing services have been fragmented across the national ICT infrastructure sitting in small, inaccessible “silos”. These silos limit the ability of researchers to gain timely access to valuable information, data and services to aid their research efforts. There is an urgent need to provide unifying middleware to enhance access to information and services such as scholarly information and journals, large datasets and grid computing facilities.
At the heart of the middleware required to unleash research potential is the cluster of services described as “access and identity management”. Additional common technical services required for research include digital rights management, search/retrieval and metadata management. This project will addresses three key areas:
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A process for engaging key stakeholders in defining their requirements for access and identity management and common technical services (and in the process educating stakeholders as to what is possible),
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The development of prototype next generation access and identity management infrastructure and related common technical services to support research effectiveness, and
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Development of implementation advice and programs, together with support for practical implementations among project partners (on an iterative basis).
These three elements have the potential to provide a quantum leap in research effectiveness at a national level.
Objectives of the Project
The overall objective of this project is to provide support for the development of prototype middleware/common technical services to enhance national research effectiveness. This support will take three forms:
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Engaging key stakeholders in a capacity building process to identify their requirements for middleware, and over the life of the project, provide opportunities for practical pilot implementations and evaluation of systems and approaches.
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Development of prototype middleware systems for access and identity management, supported by additional common services such as search services, digital rights management and metadata management. The specific components of the proposed middleware are:
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Implementation of an “umbrella” or meta access management system for intra-institutional authentication and authorization based on a multi-modal approach to the process of single-sign-on that recognizes the realities of current legacy environments (DEST, 2002; Dalziel, 2003)
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Implementation of an inter-institutional authentication and authorization regime based on attribute exchange (Cantor, 2003) and automated decision-making using machine-readable policy (Blinco, 2003)
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Implementation of an extensible, federated identity system to accommodate authentication and authorization requirements within both intra-and inter-institutional contexts (Shibboleth, 2003)
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Implementation of supporting technical services for basic digital rights management (via the use of coarse and fine-grained authorization based on digital rights expression languages), search and retrieval (including OAI harvesting) and metadata management (such as XML metadata repositories and flexible metadata editing tools)
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Dissemination that will include not only traditional forms of dissemination (such as newsletters, websites, workshops, etc) but will focus heavily on development and trials of implementation of new approaches to access and identity management and other common technical services.
Usefulness of the Project for other HE Institutions and the Community
Given the focus of this project on middleware, this project provides core information infrastructure to ensure that the national investment in hardware and networks is complemented by the necessary software infrastructure to unleash the potential of higher education research information infrastructure. The outcomes may ultimately be useful to not only all Australian higher education institutions, but also to related research institutions (such as CSIRO, etc), and potentially to other sectors (eg, VET).
In addition, the project may make valuable contributions to related international efforts, such as the Shibboleth project, the Open Knowledge Initiative (OKI) project, various Joint Information System Committee (JISC) projects, and the New Zealand National Library/Tertiary Education Commission authentication projects. As there is a general consensus among international experts in this field that the next few years will see major advances in this field, it is important that Australian work collaborates with, and contributes, to related international projects.