InCommon Federation Discussions About Online Student Services

[Ann West <>]

InCommon Student: Notes from August 6
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Ken Scullion, Richard Spencer, Mark Scheible, Mark McConahay, Ann West

Action Items:
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Ann will update the survey with Richard's and Ken's comments and make a new 
version available.
Ann will contact Keith about help with entering the survey into the UWisc 
survey tool.
Ann will ping Mark M. about working with AACRAO to send the survey out.

Survey:
https://spaces.internet2.edu/display/InCCollaborate/Establishing+Remote-Student+Identity

Notes
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Richard concerns centered on increasing the flexibility of the survey to 
accommodate schools with different processes. 

Institutions don't always assign credentials; some (like UBC) allow their 
users to create/choose them.   Either way, the credentials should only allow 
the user to authenticate, and there should be no implication of 
authorization. At many places, the SIS issues the credentials itself, 
including userid/password, and use those as inherent authorization to access 
services. At UBC, userids are not in the SIS. They are stored elsewhere to 
enhance security. 

But credentials can play a part in authorization. For instance, if a person's 
userid/password has been issued at a high level of assurance in order to 
access a higher value/risk application, having him/her authenticate in a 
compromised/insecure environment should downgrade their access to the 
higher-security application. 

The survey should be available longer than two weeks, preferably three and 
extend farther into October. Mark M and Ann will be presenting at Educause 
Annual Conference on the survey and need time to develop slides. Ann will 
extend it to October 6 and work with Mark to develop preliminary slides.

Ken offered to review the next iteration as well.