CANARIE - Canadian Access Federation

eduGAIN gives Canadians access to a world of content from the comfort of their office, classroom, or home here in Canada.

Available to staff, students, and faculty whose institutions participate in Canadian Access Federation (CAF), eduGAIN gives users a “digital passport” which enables them to access a wide range of content and applications at eduGAIN’s participating institutions. Similarly, member institutions of eduGAIN can offer their users an opportunity to access the resources of CAF’s participating institutions across the country.

This evolution of the CAF service strengthens Canadians’ prospects for global collaboration and opens up new opportunities for innovation and discovery.

Here's how the “digital passport” works.

• If a student at a Canadian college that participates in CAF wished to access a unique database of research data on, say, Arctic marine ecosystems at a Finnish institution, the student would have access to that resource while in Canada through the identity management assurances shared by CAF and eduGAIN. The student would not have to contact the Finnish institution for permissions.
• Similarly, a Belgian researcher at a member institution of eduGAIN could, over the Internet, access Canadian research on traffic control systems housed at a Canadian university that participates in CAF.

eduGAIN enables the trustworthy exchange of information by coordinating elements of technical infrastructure and providing a policy framework that controls the information exchange.

Participants in the Canadian Access Federation may opt in to this extended service (at no additional charge) and may have to make configuration changes to their technical environment if they are not already SAML-enabled.

"Research and innovation are global in nature. Global research initiatives, like the International Cancer Genome Consortium, depend on the ability of far-flung users to transmit, access, and manipulate huge amounts of data. CANARIE is committed to supporting access to data and tools for our increasingly borderless community through CAF and its participation in eduGAIN.”

Jim Roche, President and CEO of CANARIE