Alongside the event, there will be a theoretical and practical seminar introducing Shibboleth, organized by the Library of the CNR Research Area in Bologna. The seminar, designed to present Shibboleth’s architecture and functionality while guiding participants through the installation process, will take place on March 5, 2007, from 3 PM to 6 PM at CASPUR.

The purpose of an AAI (Authentication and Authorization Infrastructure) is to simplify and standardize access to services across different organizations. An AAI manages authentication and authorization processes between a user, their home organization, and the resource they wish to access (e.g., a service provided by another organization).

The federated model on which it is based aligns perfectly with the guidelines of the "2007-2009 Three-Year Plan for Public Administration IT" issued by CNIPA (October 2006): "The federal state model envisions a peer-to-peer collaboration among different institutional entities."

This approach requires the gradual adoption of a federated information system, where administrative actions result from cooperation among multiple stakeholders. Following the example of existing projects in Europe and worldwide, there is a growing demand in Italy for a national Authentication and Authorization Infrastructure to facilitate access to and sharing of digital library and education services, such as document delivery, OAI repositories, e-journals, databases, and proxy servers.

The goal of this event is to foster a discussion on developing an Italian AAI that can scale up and replicate ongoing and future pilot initiatives on a national level.