coComments related to DataGazetteer

One of the things about Shibbo

2008-08-01T15:51:15.336+02:00

One of the things about Shibboleth that has long puzzled me is why the WAYF (Where Are You From) service is considered out of scope for a Shibboleth federation implementation. It would seem that one of the key functions that a Shibboleth Federation should supply is the bridge between SP (Service Provider) and IdP (Identity Provider). Your highlight of David Orrell's presentation shows exactly the reason why. This is how I think it should work. An SP can be a part of one or more federations and the user selects their federation at the SP either by name or by graphic identity. The SP then redirects to the federation-supplied WAYF for the user to select the IdP organization. The federation WAYF then redirects to the appropriate organization's IdP. In this manner, the responsibilities are clearly delineated. We can substitute "Country" for "Federation" above in the case where there is only one federation per country. But the user's selection of their home organization should happen at that level, not at the SP level.

I think it is important to not

2008-07-16T19:54:56.987+02:00

I think it is important to note that the video appears to be to the ChunkIt website. As such, it isn't ChunkIt itself that is promoting the use of the toolbar with LexisNexis -- it was probably a student. That site shows other examples of using ChunkIt for "School and Academic Research" in post-processing results from , , and . (These three seem to be ChunkIt-generated examples.) That said...

So while ChunkIt! may have some useful applications for search engines that offer no useful features for search refinement, it may not work as well for library databases that do offer a nice range of methods for students that do need to quickly move from very broad to more narrow results.

What works in the rest of the world will get applied to library services whether we like it or not. If ChunkIt takes off and becomes a ubiquitous tool in our users browsers, they will most likely turn to it rather than using any tool-specific functions -- no matter how good those tool-specific functions are. Our challenge, it would seem to be, would be to feed information to ChunkIt's tool (again if ChunkIt gets a deep enough penetration) in such a way as to maximize ChunkIt's ability to return good results to our users.

Andy, Kim, and anyone else rea

2008-06-26T17:39:52.452+02:00

Andy, Kim, and anyone else reading this stream of comments. Where does one go to actually find information about how an "Information Card" does what it does. I have a passing acquaintance with SAML -- mostly through an interest in Shibboleth -- and some knowledge about how OpenID works. The foundation's website is very fluffy and marketing-y; in other words, very unsatisfying. Is there a place to go for a primer and/or discussions of use cases?

I'm one of those who has said

2008-05-07T16:42:03.855+02:00

I'm one of those who has said LinkedIn is "Facebook for Grownups" -- so I'll accept my wrist-slapping in about six weeks when I we meet up in Anaheim. For me, there is nothing sticky about Facebook. I've tried over the years (starting when it was limited to those who could prove they were part of the educational community by having a .edu email address), and I just can't get into it. Part of it is a remembered history of the awful flexibility it gives users to put animating junk on their personal pages with clashing colors. That was admittedly more prevalent when it first came out than it is now. Another part of my resistance is a desire to spend free time in other sectors of the net. (An introverted nature probably also doesn't help.) I have not seriously played in Facebook since The Platform capabilities were released; perhaps that would sway my opinion. LinkedIn is predictable and functional; I like that in a social networking tool. It has a reasonable stable of features (I don't use it's built-in mail function either unless it is the last resort to contact someone in the network) that are growing at a rate that can be easily absorbed by a casual user. On the other hand, I once detested Wired Magazine. In particular, what I remember of its hard to read typefaces and color choices. That reminds me a lot of my impressions of Facebook. I'm now an avid reader of Wired; either it has grown up or I've become more accepting of silly. Perhaps a little of both. Maybe I'll come around to Facebook, too -- or it will come around to me -- or maybe a little of both. In any case, you might be interested in a posting on ReadWriteWeb from Monday: LinkedIn vs. Facebook, 6 Months Later. It covers some of the same ground.