InCommon Federation Discussions About Online Student Services

["Ann West" <>]

All,

Below is the proposal I sent into Educause for their Annual Meeting this 
Fall. 

BTW, we will have a chance to update/wordsmith etc., if it is accepted.

Best,
Ann

-----Original Message-----
From:  [] 
Sent: Wednesday, February 13, 2008 6:46 AM
To: Ann West
Subject: EDUCAUSE 2008 Proposal Submission Confirmation

Dear Ann,

Thank you for your response to the EDUCAUSE 2008 Call for Proposals. The
time and effort you took to prepare this material and your willingness to
participate are greatly appreciated.

The program committee will review all responses and you will be notified
in June of 2008 regarding your proposal's status.

Meanwhile, consider sharing your great ideas on EDUCAUSE Connect
<http://connect.educause.edu/>, where you can comment on existing content,
create your own blog, update a topical Wiki page, or contribute items to
the EDUCAUSE Library. We also invite you to submit your presentation
content for publication in EQ, The IT Practitioner's Journal
<http://www.educause.edu/pub/eq/>. You'll gain valuable exposure and
recognition for your work and your institution's contribution to the
greater understanding of campus IT.

If you have any questions, please contact the proposal coordinator:

     Leslie DeGrassi
     EDUCAUSE Midwest Regional Speaker Liaison
     303-939-0325
     

**************************************************

Here is a copy of what you submitted for your records:

Presentation Title:
Opportunities and Efficiencies: Supporting Student Services with Federated
Identity

Format:
Panel Discussion

Topic Area 1:
Administrative Solutions and Business Process Improvement

Topic Area 2:
Leadership

Topic Area 3:
Identity Management

Lead Presenter:
Ann West
Ann
Program Manager, Internet2/EDUCAUSE
Michigan Technological University
Department of Computer Science
1400 Townsend Dr., Rehki Hall, Rm 221
Houghton
MI
49931-1295
(906) 487-1726



Presenter 2:
Nancy Krogh
University Registrar
University of Idaho
Registrars Office - 4260
University of Idaho
Moscow Idaho 83844
(208) 885-2020




Presentation Abstract:
Emerging trends point to using Federated Identity to address challenging
issues in supporting access to off-campus services. Where should this
technology fit in a registrar’s service strategy? Registrar and IT
panelists will discuss new partnerships and initiatives in this area and
describe exciting opportunities for sourcing and supporting student
services.

Presentation Content 1. Statement of the problem or issue:
There are a number of reasons why thinking outside of the box for hosting
the variety of student services makes sense, but right now off-campus
hosting is difficult to accomplish because of the access management
issues. If those were mitigated, what could we do?

There are a number of things we could enable within or among our campuses
as well that are difficult currently. For instance, sharing of electronic
services across our international campuses and partners with the main
location in the US, Closer to home, this might entail streamlining
services offered between main campus and the medical school, typically a
very separate organization.

In addition, classic security problems exist with setting up (and
maintaining) staff and student accounts with key service and data
partners, organizations that are critical to the student services
functions. How can we get these processes in line with good security
practices?

Presentation Content 2. Description of activity, project, or solution:
Sponsored in part by AACRAO, EDUCAUSE, and Internet2, a group of IT and
Registrar campus representatives have been meeting for about a year to
work on access management problems for off-campus or inter-campus student
services. Areas of interest have included: outsourcing anonymous student
course evaluations; working with large data partners such as National
Student Clearinghouse to streamline and better secure access to their
services; participating in a small pilot with a government agency to
demonstrate federated identity in the financial aid realm; developing
tools for communicating to Registrars about federated identity.

The group is also participating in the development of an AACRAO white
paper for campus IdM practices for student services, a quick description
of which will be included in the presentation as a key resource.


Presentation Content 3. Outcome:
This session will offer examples of how two campuses are leveraging
federated identity in the student services area. Panelists will include
Registrar and IT representatives and provide a discussion of their
business challenge and how federated identity is addressing the access
management portion. Also discussed will be resources available to those
interested in doing similar things.

Presentation Content 4. Importance or relevance to other institutions:
Offering 24X7 services and integrating them for ease of use is challenging
at best. Federated Identity allows a campus to have hosted services appear
as if they were on campus while maintaining the control over personally
identifiable information release and increasing security. Federated
identity is useful not only in the student space, but also in research and
teaching learning as a critical cyberinfrastructure component to
facilitate inter-organizational collaboration. And as with all
infrastructures, the value to the institution increases as the number of
applications and uses increases.

However, understanding the concepts and how they could be used will
provide attendees with solutions for challenges they will probably have in
the future. And to implement federated identity requires an initial
identity management system, which takes time to deploy.

This presentation will present a quick introduction to federated identity,
discuss the current work and pilots that the group is working on and offer
information about getting started for IT and Registrars.


Suggested Audience:
CIOs, registrars, campus executives, business analysts, data stewards,
technical management and implementation staff,  and student services and
security staff.