Assurance

[Rodney Petersen <>]

Not an admissions or financial aid expert here, but having just gone through this process with my daughter I think I can clarify the work flow a bit:

 

Fall – apply for admissions for early acceptance or early decision

Winter – complete FAFSA

Winter – Or, apply for regular admission

Late-Summer/Fall – disperse financial aid (this is where the Dept of ED’s verification process kicks in)

 

Ann – there must be a workflow doc somewhere as part of InC-Student or CommIT that lays this out already.  Correct?

 

I can tell you the “identification” and “authentication” and “authorization” processes are mucho-confusing when you are applying to multiple institutions!

 

Can’t wait to get my parent credentials ;-)

 

-Rodney

 

From: [mailto:] On Behalf Of Brian Arkills
Sent: Friday, January 18, 2013 2:30 PM
To:
Cc: InC-Student
Subject: [InC-Student] RE: [Assurance] Business Drivers for Student Id Proofing

 

I'm confused or maybe just not well-versed in the financial aid part of the university business.

 

My understanding is that application for federal financial aid happens in January, about the same time you apply for one or more universities.

 

And now I'm to understand that the federal government thinks we'd want to do strong identity proofing at that time, when we haven't gotten a commitment, haven't accepted them, and in many cases haven't had them physically visit.

 

Why would we create accounts & bear the cost of strong identity proofing for potential students at this really early point in the admissions process?

 

Is this wishful thinking on the federal government's part or am I missing something that I should know?

 

 

From: [] On Behalf Of David Walker
Sent: Friday, January 18, 2013 10:35 AM
To:
Cc: InC-Student
Subject: Re: [Assurance] Business Drivers for Student Id Proofing

 

Ann,

When we started UCTrust a number of years ago, we decided that there weren't good business drivers to vet all student identities at LoA-2, because of the cost.  There are, however, certain groups of students (notably, those who receive financial aid) where higher assurance is warranted.  Also, we observed that such students will very likely have a close relationship with some part of the university, such as the Financial Aid office, where higher-assurance identity vetting can be done (or, perhaps, is already being done) without significant additional cost.  So, the recommended strategy for identity management systems was to create means by which selected students could be vetted at LoA-2 by leveraging existing business processes to keep the costs low.

I can't speak to how many of UC's identity management systems implemented this strategy; as far as I know, UC doesn't have federated services that would require LoA-2-vetted students.  I'll be interested to see if DoEd's incentive causes some action.

David

On Fri, 2013-01-18 at 16:09 +0000, Ann West wrote:

All,

 

While having an interesting conversation on id proofing with my Educause colleagues Rodney Peterson and Jarret Cummings, Jarret turned my attention to the results of the DoEd Dear Colleague Letter released last year that outlined ways for campuses to help address financial aid fraud.

 

DoEd now has recommendations, a summary of which can be found here: http://www.tgslc.org/blog/post.cfm/verifying-identity-and-the-statement-of-educational-purpose-examining-the-documentation-standards

 

Given the difficulty of motivating the administration to take up the mantle of and pay for id proofing in the context of identity assurance, could this driver assist? Reading closely, there are data collection mismatches with the FICAM program and further with InCommon Silver that we may be able to address through discussion with FICAM and DoEd. As side from that, do folks see any value in using to help make the case for id proofing?

 

Best,

Ann

-----

Ann West

Assistant Director,

Assurance and Community

Internet2/InCommon/Michigan Tech 

 

office: +1.906.487.1726