Chat in the lounge with AAF – Nov 2021

At the end of each year, the AAF team wrap up with a general meeting to give subscribers an insight into the year that was. This year, AAF tried something a little different. On Tuesday 23 November, the team hosted a chat in the lounge. Elleina Filippi (COO) moderated the panel for a live webinar stream. The panel included CEO Heath Marks, Head of Projects & Managed Services John Scullen and OCRID Consortium Lead Melroy Almeida.

Heath kicked off proceedings and spoke about the key services and products that support teachers, students and researchers to access online services enabled by the AAF, subscribers and the research sector. Heath also shared the exciting news of the AAF’s involvement in the federal government’s eResearch infrastructure roadmap which recognises AAF as a key national capability.

John went on to mention two legislations that were of particular interest, the Trusted Digital Identity Act and Data Availability as well as the Transparency Act. John mentioned that we aren’t yet sure how the AAF and the higher education research sector will be impacted by these legislations and will watch the progress of these legislations as they unfold.

John also spoke about the development of the cloud connector to integrate solutions such as Okta and Azure AD for Rapid IdP. This makes it easier for more organisations to connect to Rapid IdP and now approximately 50% of identity providers are connected using Rapid IdP.

Melroy concluded the chat with an update on ORCID with some impressive statistics. In the last five years, ORCID has grown from: 30,000 registered members with a 10%-member integration to 150,000 registered members with a 90%-member integration. That is phenomenal growth in five years.

ORCID have released great new tooling that is aimed towards smaller organisations which will hopefully see more growth for the Consortium moving forward. This also includes the reporting dashboard which provides enhanced reporting visibility and access for members.

AAF and ARDC are jointly working on a Persistent Identifier (PIDS) cost benefit analysis report which will identify:

• Cost and time saved by members,
• The improved accuracy of reporting; and
• Tracking of research investment and impact.

The report is expected to be finalised mid-2022

The webinar was an incredible success and provided an opportunity to convey information in a fun, interactive way, giving viewers a chance to ask questions in real time. 2021 has been a big year for the AAF and we very much look forward to the new year.