Multi-factor Authentication in Higher Education

Internet2 Scalable Privacy MFA Logo

The ScalePriv Project contains several major thrusts around identity and privacy, including a focus on promoting the adoption of Multi-factor Authentication (MFA) across Higher Education institutions. The ScalePriv Project includes three partially supported leadership deployments of MFA at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), University of Texas System, and University of Utah, as well as the commitment of building the MFA Cohortium (see below).

Promoting the adoption of MFA fits into the overall ScalePriv Project in multiple ways:

The MFA Pilot Institutions

The ScalePriv Project includes three partially supported leadership deployments of MFA at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), University of Texas System, and University of Utah, as well as the commitment of building the MFA Cohortium. As these pilots progress, more information about each will be added to this space and a page focused on the pilot deployments at each institution. The work and expertise of these three institutions will also be contributing to the broader MFA Cohortium initiative described next.

The MFA Cohortium

Summary from the draft MFA Cohortium Call for Participation

The Internet2 Scalable Privacy Project (ScalePriv) is seeking campuses to participate in the Multi-factor Authentication (MFA) "Cohortium". The MFA Cohortium will be a ScalePriv-supported group of institutions sharing their explorations, experiences, expertise, artifacts, and overall "journey" in learning about, planning for, and deploying multi-factor authentication for a variety of key use cases within each institution. It will be a facilitated and focused 15-month effort to help you (as a participating institution) make real progress towards MFA deployments. It will enable your institution, and higher education more broadly, to answer the questions "where do we need MFA?", "how do we deploy it?", and "what will it cost and what is our ROI?". And it will be focused on the research and education (R&E) community, dealing with issues and use cases of particular concern within R&E such as integrating MFA into WebSSO, sensitive data, cloud services, distance learners, bring-your-own-device, and the return on investment (ROI) within the R&E environment.

What is a Cohortium? A Cohortium is:

cohortium: "Group of institutions sharing their explorations, experiences, expertise, artifacts, and overall journey", in this case of planning for and deploying multi-factor authentication.

This MFA Cohortium opportunity, and the overall ScalePriv project of which it is part, is made possible by a grant from the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC) initiative, and by support from InCommon and Internet2.

Important highlights:

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