InCommon Federation Discussions About Online Student Services

["David S. Yeh" <>]

As I envision the world, Shib is a two-way street -- entitities share 
information both ways -- using the Law and Medical School application 
services as an example -- we are/will be exchanging information and 
data to/from our institutions -- Admissions App, student data, etc. 
We don't want yet another trusted security infrastructure into which 
we must log on to send and to obtain data they are collecting.

The current AVOW model is a push approach -- we may want a pull 
whereby other secure data is in a 'secure dropbox' for us to pull 
out.   We will be using the model Joanne described in our approach to 
MonsterTrak, which collects millions of resumes and transcripts from 
all our students for summer internships and jobs, and regular 
jobs...I understand they are interested in a batch pull.

I do want to know that it is the AVOW server we are sending our 
transcripts and not a shadow or mirror somewhere else on the globe.



At 6:17 PM -0400 7/19/07, Karen Schultz wrote:
> We are using AVOW's technology to deliver certified electronic
> transcripts.  I agree with Joanne -- I don't see how federation is
> applicable for this service.  Of course, we are currently running the
> technology in-house, whereas AVOW now offers a hosting service and most
> of their new customers appear to be signing on for this.  Perhaps
> federation plays a role in the hosted environment . . . .
>           Karen
>
> Karen Schultz
> University Registrar
> Penn State University
> 114 Shields Building
> University Park, PA 16802
> (814) 863-3681   
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Joanne Berg []
> Sent: Thursday, July 19, 2007 9:53 AM
> To: InC-Student
> Subject: Re: [InC-Student] [Avow Systems]
>
> Hi all -
> Tom Black, Registrar at the University of Chicago, uses Avow to send his
> transcripts electronically. Tom was just in Madison yesterday to talk
> with me, my staff and several "techies" from here about how he secures
> the transcript data. I had an IT architect in the room as well as
> several apps and security folks. We talked briefly about InCommon/Shib
> for this but we weren't sure how federated signon would be helpful. We
> got a little creative and off track - including having a discussion
> about the use of xythos to push "signed" documents to students who would
> then issue certificates/tickets to whomever they want to have access to
> the document (e.g., student tells prospective employer, this is where to
> find my transcript). Another brainstorm was to let the student "index"
> their transcripts for recipients who have an imaging system on the other
> end. Nonetheless, more "registrarial" what-if discussions need to occur.
>
> We also need to talk with the recipients of these documents
> (transcripts, grade reports, enrollment certifications, even diplomas).
> Graduate Schools would be a good place to start. I believe the CIC (big
> 10) registrars meet the end of Sept - we could certainly have a good
> discussion there.
>
> More later,
> Joanne
>
>
> RL 'Bob' Morgan wrote:
> >  I had a chat at AACRAO Tech with Chris Kaschmitter, who is Technical
> >  Director of Avow Systems.  He knew about Shib already and said they
> >  wanted to integrate with it but need some help.  So some of us
> >  Shib/InCommon techies will follow up.  It would be interesting for
> >  registrars to provide insight into cases where federated web signon
> >  would be useful in the Avow product/service set.
> >
> >  Their main service as I understand it is enabling signed XML
> >  transcripts. At this point this requires buying certificates from a
> >  single commercial provider.  He said they are moving to open this up.
> >  Including the USHER CA would permit campuses to issue their own
> >  certificates for this purpose. This would no doubt raise some
> >  interesting policy issues.
> >
> >   - RL "Bob"
> >
> >  ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> >  Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2007 09:37:29 -0600
> >  From: Chris Kaschmitter <>
> >  To: RL 'Bob' Morgan <>
>  > Subject: RE: followup on Shib and InCommon and USHER
> >  RL,
> >
> >  Thanks for the info and for the quick response on this.  We are very
> >  interested in adding support for Shibboleth into our +ADDS product
> >  line and I'm sure this will get us a good start.
> >
> >  It was a pleasure meeting you and I look forward to working with you
> >  down the road.
> >
> >  Chris
> >
> >  -----Original Message-----
> >  From: RL 'Bob' Morgan []
> >  Sent: Tuesday, July 17, 2007 12:12 PM
> >  To: Chris Kaschmitter
> >  Cc: John Krienke
> >  Subject: followup on Shib and InCommon and USHER
> >
> >  Chris:
> >
> >  Good to meet you at AACRAO Tech.  Info about InCommon and Shib and
> USHER:
> >     http://incommonfederation.org/
> >
> >     http://shibboleth.internet2.edu/
> >
> >     http://www.usherca.org/
> >
> >  We'd be happy to talk about how Avow Systems might work with higher ed
>
> >  partners to take advantage of these services.  John is director of
> >  both InCommon and USHER.
> >
> >    - RL "Bob"


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