GeoConvert from MIMAS

Page last modified on 01 April 2010, at 12:19 PM (initially posted on 13 August 2008)

GeoConvert is an online geography matching and conversion tool which aims to simplify and expand the use of the information contained in the UK postcode directories.

It is provided by the Census Dissemination Unit (CDU) at Mimas, and is part of the ESRC Census Programme. Users must register online with the Census Registration System.

WAYFless URL http://census.mimas.ac.uk/cgi-bin/wayf?param=G&idp=<EntityID>
User accountability - required

See http://support.mimas.ac.uk/access/#federated-access-details for technical details.

This service is available for subscription to UK HE, FE & research councils through JISC Collections.

Notes:

1. The only attribute that an identity provider must release for its users to be able to access many services that are licensed for use by everyone at a particular organisation is eduPersonScopedAffiliation. This is a scoped attribute, which might, for example, have the value "member" in scope "uni.ac.uk", often written as:

It is used for the basic authorisation decision: does uni.ac.uk subscribe to the service in question? If so, the user is allowed access. The service provider will maintain its own list of which organisations (scopes) can access its service. For allowed organisations, the federation's Technical Recommendations for Participants indicate that, in HE/FE, users with scoped affiliation values from the set {member, student, staff, faculty, employee} are typically authorised to access content licensed on the basis of the JISC Model Licence, while {affiliate, alum} are not.

While a Shibboleth identity provider can generate eduPersonScopedAffiliation statically by setting the required value in attribute-resolver.xml, this should only be done when it is known that all users are authorised. Otherwise, the value can be picked up from your LDAP / Active Directory as described on the IdP setup page.

Users of other IdP software should check their documentation.

2. Many services can make use of the eduPersonTargetedID attribute. This is a persistent opaque identifier, which enables service personalisation (remembering data about a user over different login sessions) without the service provider knowing who the user is. If the identity provider supplies the eduPersonTargetedID attribute, the session is treated similarly to an Athens personal account. Otherwise, the service's personalisation features (e.g., saved searches) may be disabled, though the service will still function in the same way as with Athens shared accounts. With some services (e.g., Zetoc Alert) this attribute is mandatory. If so, it is marked as "Required/Yes" in the table in Attribute Usage.

For a Shibboleth IdP, generation of eduPersonTargetedID in attribute-resolver.xml is described on the IdP setup page.

Release of eduPersonTargetedID by attribute-filter.xml is described further down the same page.

Users of other IdP software should check their documentation.

9. Some services (including EDINA services which require individual user registration) will only grant access to users from an identity provider marked in the UK federation metadata as offering user accountability as defined in section 6 of the federation's Rules of Membership. Identity providers that offer user accountability are marked by having an <AccountableUsers> element within the <Extensions> element of the IdP's <EntityDescriptor>.