Hi Patrick, We've got a very similar problem here, lots of disparate SIS. When looking at this seemingly mammoth task, I took a KISS approach which effectively sidelines (perhaps ignores!) the issue. Based on the assumption that students in their institutional LMS have already been authenticated via some means (gnarly SIS or otherwise) we built the authentication federation layer to be between LMSs. Each node of Moodle Networks is enabled to allow students form another node in, down to a student or course level. You can set your Moodle to Hub mode as well which would allow any other node to have a trust relationship with it. Reports are transferred to the host Moodle so that if these subsequently transfer back into a SIS that's accommodated. In essence we're extending the classic SIS-LMS relationship to being SIS-LMS + trusted friends and thereby abstracting away the problem of SIS interoperability.
The network is conceived so that the student's access is through their own institutional gateway – their LMS. naturally, this doesn't solve all the organisational issues such as John Smith wants to take Viticulture 101 from 3rd party provider. These issues can only be solved with cross-credentialing frameworks and all the people issues, but if achieved then Viticulture 101 would be an offering by Institution A (and thereby exist in their SIS) even though it is actually provided by Institution B. We're trying to develop a distributed network system (with low requirements for governance overhead) rather than a hub and spoke model.
While the technology side had a few challenges, relative to moving the hearts and minds, it's the easy part. However, by enabling some possibilities I'm sure some interesting configurations will eventuate and many that we didn't envisage. The inclusion of a pan-institutional learner-driven ePortfolio system (also with federated authentication) adds to the potential of networked learning opportunities.
cheers, Richard
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