Integrating external user profiles in collaboration applications

Due to the increase in federated nature of collaboration applications, users from multiple institutions have the potential to participate in activities centered around common regions of interest. However, existing technologies address external users at a coarse grained level. Consequently, mechanisms to integrate external user profiles into collaboration applications are practically non-existent. This prevents an end user from having locus of control in managing permissions to resources for users that are external to their parent institution. In this paper, the need for a fine grained access control mechanism for end users, that allows them to transparently manage permissions to external users in collaboration applications, is addressed. Mechanisms that need to be in place to provide a framework for realizing this capability are outlined. Some of the components that exist now are reviewed in this context. The end users will benefit from a holistic framework by having empowerment over resource management for external collaborators in a natural way.