News and information about InCommon Academy offerings

[Dean Woodbeck <>]

InCommon News
August 9, 2010

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In This Issue:

* CIC Reports on First Phase of Silver Adoption
* “Identity and the Cloud” Half-Day Session at EDUCAUSE
* Introductory Slide Deck Available
* Microsoft Becomes an InCommon Affiliate
* New Participants

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CIC Reports on First Phase of Silver Adoption
The CIC (Committee for Institutional Cooperation) InCommon Silver Task Force 
has released a report on the first phase of its project to have all member 
institutions achieve Silver status by fall 2011. The CIC includes the Big Ten 
schools plus the University of Chicago. Along with the University of 
Washington and Virginia Tech, the CIC is tackling the identity assurance 
profile in three phases. The report on phase one – documenting policies and 
procedures and standard operating practices – is available at: 
http://www.cic.net/Home/Projects/Technology/IdMgmt/InCommonSilver.aspx.

In addition, a working group will form this fall, consisting of other 
InCommon participants interested in pursuing Silver. If you are interested, 
email 
.

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“Identity and the Cloud” Half-Day Session at EDUCAUSE
A half-day preconference session at EDUCAUSE – “Identity and the Cloud: 
Preparing Your Campus” – will focus on understanding InCommon and federated 
identity management and understanding the value proposition for joining 
InCommon. The session will be held Tuesday, October 12. Presenters will 
include John O’Keefe (Lafayette College), Justin Sipher (Skidmore College) 
and Ann West (Internet2/InCommon). For more information, see the EDUCAUSE 
website (http://bit.ly/cdwbXz)

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Introductory Slide Deck Available

InCommon has prepared a slide deck for participants to use to introduce 
colleagues, campus administrators, and others to the concept of federated 
identity management and InCommon. You can download the deck here:
https://spaces.internet2.edu/download/attachments/2815/InC_Overview_v2.ppt?version=1

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Microsoft Becomes an InCommon Affiliate
Microsoft Corp., a worldwide leader in software, services and solutions, has 
become an InCommon Affiliate. The Affiliate program connects higher education 
institutions and their federating partners with commercial or non-profit 
organizations that provide software, content, guidance, support, and 
implementation and integration services related to participating in the 
federation. Read the full release at https://spaces.internet2.edu/x/WAHw

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New Participants in July

Higher Education
-       University of Memphis (www.memphis.edu)
-       Gustavus Adolphus College (www.gustavus.edu)
-       Tulane University (www.tulane.edu)
-       American University (www.american.edu)
-       Regis University (www.regis.edu)
-       University of the District of Columbia (www.udc.edu)
-       Naval Postgraduate School (www.nps.navy.mil)

Sponsored Partners
-       Cambridge University Press (www.cambridge.org)
-       Cayuse, Inc. (www.cayuse.com)
-       Moodlerooms, Inc. (www.moodlerooms.com)
-       ALEKS Corporation (www.aleks.com)
-       Desire2Learn (www.desire2learn.com)
-       VoiceThread (www.voicethread.com)

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About Cambridge University Press

Cambridge University Press was formed in 1534 and is the publishing business 
of the University of Cambridge. Dedicated to excellence, its purpose is to 
further the University's objective of advancing knowledge, education, 
learning, and research. Its extensive peer-reviewed publishing lists comprise 
36,000 titles covering academic research, professional development, 
school-level education, English language teaching and bible publishing. This 
list is growing at a rate of 2,800 titles every year and spans subjects from 
aesthetics through to zoology, with authors ranging from Shakespeare to 
English language teaching author, Ray Murphy. Cambridge Books Online offers 
access to eBooks from a world-renowned publishing program, covering subjects 
from all disciplines across science, technology and medicine, as well as 
humanities and social sciences. Building on an outstanding print program and 
an extensive portfolio of high quality, dynamic and innovative online 
resources, Cambridge Books Online offers all levels of user a new dimension 
of access and usability to extensive scholarly content, supporting and 
enhancing all aspects of research. Cambridge Journals Online (CJO) is an 
intuitive gateway to a collection of over 250 peer-reviewed academic and 
practitioner journals, many of which are the leading titles in their fields. 
CJO undergoes a constant process of development, with librarian and 
researcher consultations informing three major releases of new functionality 
per year, underlining Cambridge Journals' continuing 24-hour commitment to 
the global academic community.

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About Cayuse, Inc.

Cayuse, Inc. delivers a modular suite of software solutions that improve 
productivity, accountability and management of research enterprises. With 
origins in academic research, the company's products and services support the 
research administration life cycle from collaborative proposal development, 
compliance, and project administration, through technology commercialization. 
The company's web-based proposal collaboration product, Cayuse 424, is used 
widely by research organizations that prepare and electronically submit 
federal grant applications through Grants.gov and Research.gov. Cayuse is 
being sponsored for InCommon membership by New York University, a Cayuse 424 
site. Cayuse customers include many InCommon participants, including campuses 
in the University of Texas System, University of Wisconsin-Madison, The Ohio 
State University, Caltech, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 
and many others. 

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About Moodlerooms

Moodlerooms, the leading provider of managed open-source Moodle solutions, 
strives to provide educators and learners across the globe with a platform 
that is flexible, reliable and affordable. By combining cloud hosting, 
managed open-source, and Software-as-a-Service delivery, Moodlerooms’ 
customers receive all of the benefits of open-source Moodle with 
enterprise-level support, services and features. Moodlerooms’ consultative 
approach gives customers the opportunity to choose a solution that perfectly 
fits their organization’s mission, giving them more time to focus resources 
on what really matters — quality teaching and learning. Moodlerooms’ unique 
approach provides something beyond an LMS—one community, one provider and one 
platform forever. Moodlerooms is using Shibboleth, and has joined InCommon, 
in order to provide Single Sign On to the joule(TM) Learning Management 
Platform.

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About ALEKS Corporation

ALEKS Corporation is a leader in the creation of Web-based, artificially 
intelligent, educational software. ALEKS assessment and learning technologies 
were originally developed by a team of cognitive scientists and software 
engineers at the University of California Irvine, with major funding from the 
National Science Foundation. ALEKS is founded on groundbreaking research in 
mathematical cognitive science known as Knowledge Space Theory.  Through 
adaptive questioning, ALEKS accurately assesses a student's knowledge state 
and then delivers targeted instruction on the exact topics the student is 
most ready to learn.  ALEKS has been used by millions of students in more 
than 50 academic subjects ranging from elementary school mathematics to 
pre-calculus at thousands of schools and other educational institutions 
throughout the world.

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About VoiceThread

VoiceThread is a multimedia-communications platform that increases engagement 
and social presence in online learning environments. Used by over 5000 
educational organizations, VoiceThread is recognized by the AASL, MERLOT, and 
the New Media Consortium as one of the tools "likely to have a large impact 
on teaching, learning, research, or creative expression within education," 
with a time-to-adoption horizon of one year or less. VoiceThread is an 
accessible and “more human” way to connect in asynchronous, online learning 
environments. As an experienced Shibboleth integrator and troubleshooter, 
VoiceThread is excited to join InCommon in its mission to facilitate a common 
framework for trustworthy shared-management-of-access to online resources in 
support of research and education.

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Dean Woodbeck
Program Manager, InCommon

(734) 352-7007
www.incommon.org