InCommon Federation Discussions About Online Student Services

["David S. Yeh" <>]

Title: Interested User of InCommon Federated Idm/Shibb

I have been traveling for the past several weeks with intermittent computer and communications access.  My apologies for missing the last call.

One of the series of back-to-back meetings was with the Board of Directors of the National Student Clearinghouse (NSC).  While movement towards adopting Shibboleth/InCommon is slow, there is increasing positive signs.  Meanwhile, I met Cathy Mueller, Executive Director of Mapping-Your-Future (M-Y-F) [http://www.mapping-your-future.org/], and not-for-profit organization which assists students in the college financing journey, including post graduation/exit from school and student loan payment processes.  Cathy was very excited to learn about Shibboleth/InCommon Federated IdM.  Because students and graduates must be able to access student loan information, they have been challenged by having to examine authorization/authentication log-in that might be less cumbersome.  She is therefore very interested in learning how Shibboleth/InCommon might be beneficial.

The touch points for this reaches to a very large higher ed business sector -- the student loan providers.  While the media and congress are focused on an unfortunate side of this business, the reality is they are higher ed business partners.   M-Y-F also collaborates with METEOR [http://www.nchelp.org/pages/page.cfm?id=22] , as does NSC, and I recollect someone from the Shibboleth and/or InCommon group.

Cathy indicated she is aware of EDUCAUSE; she would be interested in meeting with us to explore more fully Shibboleth/InCommon.  Cathy is based in Round Rock, Texas, near Austin.  Let me know if there is interest in an initial conference call to map out next steps.

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