InCommon Federation Discussions About Online Student Services

[Ann West <>]

All,

Some great comments from Richard Spencer to discuss on our call today. Please 
take a look before the call (that is, if you have some time).

Best,
Ann

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: "Richard Spencer" 
<>
To: "Ann West" 
<>
Sent: Thursday, August 5, 2010 7:47:28 PM
Subject: RE: Survey Link to Review

Hi Ann:

Thanks for inviting me to join the call tomorrow.

I thought it might be helpful if I sent you some comments and suggestions in 
an edited version of the draft survey - a copy is attached.

I have two areas of concern:

1) The significance of user credentials.

I think we need to clarify the difference between credentials and identity 
accounts. 

Credentials should only be used to allow a person to login and authenticate 
him or herself to the system that issued them. They should not reflect in any 
way whether or not the user's identity has been vetted and proofed. If the 
system is designed to allow it, users should be able to change their 
credentials (user name and password) regardless of whether or not their 
identity has been vetted and proofed.

An identity account (preferably, but not always, in an authentication system 
such as CAS) contains information about the person, and this information may 
or not have been vetted and proofed. If it has been proofed, then the user 
obviously cannot change it (except with appropriate authorization). So the 
status of the information in the identity account changes as vetting and 
proofing takes place, but the status of the credentials should not change. (I 
realize that currently not all authentication systems work this way, but 
hopefully everyone would like to move in this direction.)

I have suggest changing the order of the definitions of User ID, Credential, 
Credentialing and Authentication in the "Terms" section, and some of the 
wording, to try to make this distinction more explicit.

2) How credentials are chosen or issued.

In the section on Assigning/Choosing Prospect Credentials, I have tried to 
reword some of the questions and answers to explicitly allow for:

a) systems that require users to choose their own credentials (as opposed to 
systems that generate and issue credentials)

b) systems that allow users to change their credentials if they wish (and 
therefore users never have permanent credentials).

I hope some of this will be helpful.

Richard

  
        
-----Original Message-----
From: Ann West 
[mailto:]
 
Sent: Thursday, 2010 August 05 2:24 PM
To: InC-Student
Cc: scullion; Spencer, Richard; goodwinj; heuerd; rskeel
Subject: Survey Link to Review

All,

The Survey is ready to review for tomorrow's call at:
https://spaces.internet2.edu/display/InCCollaborate/Establishing+Remote-Student+Identity

As a side note, I've also invited Ken Scullion from Ryerson U to join us.

Mark and MARK, I've tweaked the background material a bit. 
You can tweak it back if you'd like. ;-)

Talk to you tomorrow!

Ann

----- Original Message -----
> All,
> 
> As a reminder, our next InCommon Student call is this Friday Aug 6 at
> 3:00 pm ET.
> 
> Joining us will be 4 folks who expressed interest at the AACRAO Tech
> Conference in helping us design the Establishing Remote Student
> Identity Survey. They are:
> 
> Richard Spencer from U of British Columbia
> Jess Goodwin from Portland State
> Rick Skeel from U of Oklahoma
> Dawn Heuer from Embry-Riddle
> 
> Mark M will be talking to Janie at AACRAO about sending this out in
> September. Before that happens, however, we should have several groups
> review the survey to ensure it is effective at gathering the
> information we want. These folks will be the first reviewers and (I
> hope) work with us on refining the document.
> 
> The agenda includes a discussion of the survey, reactions to the
> wording, organization, etc.
> 
> Dial-in numbers:
> +1-734-615-7474 PREFERRED
> +1-866-411-0013
> Access code: 0178568#
> 
> Hope you can join us!
> 
> Best,
> Ann
> 
> 
> --
> Ann West, Sr. Program Manager
> Internet2/InCommon/Michigan Tech
> 
> 
> office: +1.906.487.1726

-- 
Ann West, Sr. Program Manager 
Internet2/InCommon/Michigan Tech 

 

 
office: +1.906.487.1726 


-- 
Ann West, Sr. Program Manager 
Internet2/InCommon/Michigan Tech 

 

 
office: +1.906.487.1726

Attachment: establishing remote student identity survey.docx
Description: establishing remote student identity survey.docx