What is SWITCH?
SWITCH is a private foundation established by the federal government and cantons. The central aspects of the foundation's mission are enabling, maintaining, and promoting a secure and interconnected research and education infrastructure in Switzerland. SWITCH provides infrastructure for universities and other institutions. This infrastructure includes a central login system called "SWITCH AAI" and an identity for lifelong learning called "SWITCH edu-ID".
https://www.switch.ch/
What is edu-ID?
The edu-ID is an identity that allows individuals to manage their educational portfolio throughout their lives. By using this identity, one can also access various services from universities and other institutions that are members of the federation.
Here are detailed explanations and a video:
https://www.switch.ch/de/edu-id
What is an ‘AAI Federation’?
The AAI Federation is the collective group of institutions that offer services via AAI and edu-ID. For example, universities provide access to libraries and knowledge repositories, while university hospitals offer access to research materials, and so on.
https://help.switch.ch/aai/about/federation/
Will AAI disappear because of edu-ID?
The edu-ID enhances the AAI mechanism by utilizing the AAI infrastructure while adding the ability to manage one's own learning portfolio. AAI will continue to exist, but edu-ID will become a prominent component. In this sense, the AAI Federation and the edu-ID identity federation are almost identical in content. Access to AAI is only possible through an institution, whereas anyone can create an edu-ID themselves.
What is the value of edu-ID if people in other countries can create it freely?
The answer to this question has several layers.
1) SWITCH has implemented extensive technical and organizational measures to detect and eliminate invalid accounts. Significant efforts are also made to prevent individuals from accidentally creating multiple edu-IDs.
2) An edu-ID alone does not automatically grant access to Swiss educational resources. Each edu-ID is only granted access based on the attributes and organization defined by the respective institutions. In essence, an edu-ID is just a key, but not all doors are automatically open. The value of a specific edu-ID grows as more educational institutions document completed courses and unlock educational resources for that particular edu-ID.