Starting in January 2010, InCommon participants will be able to register 50 service providers for one flat rate, up from the current number of 20. The InCommon Steering Committee approved this service expansion, acting on a recommendation from the InCommon Technical Advisory Committee (TAC).
"We already have several participants already over the limit of 20 and more who would soon reach that limit," said John Krienke, InCommon operations manager. "As a federation, we want to encourage the deployment of available services."
Increased activity, along with customer demand for more services per organization, led to the recommendation and is a testament to the increasing adoption of federated online resources and applications.
The change is already reflected in the 2010 billing cycle and is not tied to the new tiered fee structure that also goes into effect January 1, 2010. All participants, regardless of classification, will benefit from this expansion of service.
Prior to this change, any organization registering more than 20 service providers paid an additional fee of $1,000 annually for each additional 20 SPs.
"We're encouraged to see not only corporate partners but also universities registering their online services for federated access," Krienke explained. "Encouraging this growth increases the value for all federation participants and provides more immediate value for additional institutions to join InCommon."
InCommon News - December 3, 2009
In This Issue:
- InCommon Reaches 4 Million End Users
- Library Collaboration Seeks Library Information
- Reminder - New Fee Structure Slated for January 1
- EDUCAUSE Joins InCommon
- University of Texas system joins InCommon
- New Participants
InCommon Reaches 4 Million End Users
The InCommon Federation has achieved another milestone - the community now includes more than 4 million end users. The federation also has almost 200 participating organizations, including colleges and universities, research labs, agencies of the U.S. government, and private companies that offer web-based resources and services. Read the entire story at: https://spaces.at.internet2.edu/x/9AGp
Library Collaboration Seeks Survey Information
The InCommon Library Collaboration has identified 17 resource providers that are
members of the UK access management federation, but are not members of
InCommon. The group has developed a survey to help identify universities that may have contracts with these providers and/or be interested in federating. If you have a contact at your library, please forward the link to the survey.http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=wGlEYsyiVnJgw01abx28xQ_3d_3d
Reminder - New Fee Structure Slated for January 1
InCommon will implement its new fee structure on January 1. The new InCommon business plan includes an interim, tiered fee structure for the 2010 calendar year, tailored to Carnegie classifications. This fee structure was unanimously approved by the InCommon Steering Committee in September 2009. Details are available here: http://www.incommonfederation.org/fees2010.html
EDUCAUSE Joins InCommon
EDUCAUSE, the association for information technology in higher education, announced that it has joined the InCommon Federation. "As the trusted leadership organization for higher education IT broadly, EDUCAUSE is signaling to institutions of all sizes and types - from small private colleges to large research universities - the importance of building an identity and access management infrastructure that can be leveraged through federations such as InCommon," according to Peter M. Siegel, CIO and vice provost for informational and educational technology at the University of California, Davis, and co-chair of the Higher Education Information Security Council. The press release is available here: https://spaces.at.internet2.edu/x/eoag
University of Texas System Joins InCommon
Citing the opportunities for increased security, collaboration and single sign-on convenience, The University of Texas System has announced that its nine campuses, six medical centers and system office have all joined the InCommon Federation. Read the full story here: https://spaces.at.internet2.edu/x/LgGp
New Participants
Since November 1, these identity providers and services providers have joined InCommon:
Identity Providers:
- University of Delaware
- San Diego State University
- University of Texas at Arlington
- University of Texas at Austin
- University of Texas at Brownsville
- University of Texas at Dallas
- University of Texas at El Paso
- University of Texas at San Antonio
- University of Texas at Tyler
- University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
- University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio
- University of Texas Health Science Center At Tyler
- University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center
- University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston
- University of Texas of the Permian Basin
- University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas
- University of Texas System
- University of Texas-Pan American
Service Providers:
- EDUCAUSE
- Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries
About EDUCAUSE (www.educause.edu)
EDUCAUSE is a nonprofit association whose mission is to advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology. EDUCAUSE helps those who lead, manage, and use information resources to shape strategic decisions at every level. The current membership comprises more than 2,200 colleges, universities, and educational organizations, including 250 corporations, with more than 17,000 active members.
About The Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries (www.coalliance.org)
Commonly referred to as "the Alliance", this is a consortium of 10 academic and public institutions representing 13 major libraries located in Colorado and Wyoming. Founded in 1974 to consider ways of sharing resources, the consortium's latest initiative is the Alliance Digital Repository (ADR) service (http://adr.coalliance.org). Begun in late 2006, the ADR offers institutional repository services ranging from digital asset management and preservation to discovery and access-focused portals to support and guidance in digital content and metadata preparation.
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InCommon News is published by the InCommon Federation (www.incommon.org) for its participants and other interested parties. Send feedback or comments to woodbeck@internet2.edu.
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December 2, 2009 - The InCommon Federation today announced the achievement of a milestone - its community now includes more than 4 million end users. The federation also has almost 200 participating organizations, including colleges and universities, research labs, agencies of the U.S. government, and private companies that offer web-based resources and services.
When institutions join InCommon, their faculty, researchers, students, and staff can use their organizational ID and password to access on-campus and off-campus services, rather than maintaining multiple passwords and usernames. As a result, people use the same credentials to log-in to such third-party services as library databases, multimedia content, research information and services provided by U.S. government agencies, and career center systems and tools.
"One of the primary goals of federations like InCommon is to allow universities to provide access to a wide range of off-campus resources while still protecting the security and privacy of their students, faculty, and staff," explained Kevin Morooney, chief information officer and vice provost for information technology at Pennsylvania State University and incoming chair of the InCommon Steering Committee. "It is gratifying to see that the federation continues to gain traction within higher education, with research labs and consortia, and with agencies of the U.S. government."
InCommon was recently one of the organizations recognized with the 2009 EDUCAUSE Catalyst Award, honoring innovations that provide groundbreaking solutions to major information technology challenges in higher education. EDUCAUSE, a non-profit association, has more than 2,200 college and university members and 17,000 individual members.
InCommon includes two types of members - identity providers and service providers. The identity providers - colleges, universities, and research agencies - already supply user IDs and passwords to their students, faculty and staff to allow them to access campus resources like email. Service providers deliver some type of online resource, such as a library database or a course management system.
When these entities join InCommon, they agree on a set of shared policies, processes, and technology standards. One of those standards is a process for single sign-on, so one set of credentials provides access to resources from any service provider, without the need for another user ID or password.
This greatly streamlines collaboration among multiple organizations because federation members agree on these policies and processes once, rather than each time they sign a contract with a new partner. It also improves security and privacy, as the identity provider releases only the information needed for the service provider to make an access decision. Many times, this does not require the release of even an individual's name or other personally identifiable information.
For more information on InCommon and a full list of participants, visit: http://www.incommon.org
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About InCommon(R)
InCommon provides the U.S. higher education and research community with the common framework for trustworthy shared management of access to online resources. InCommon facilitates the development of a community-based common trust fabric sufficient to enable participants to make appropriate decisions about the release of identity information and the control of access to protected online resources. InCommon is intended to enable production-level end-user access to a wide variety of protected resources. For more information, visit http://www.incommon.org.