UC 6+2 now grants access to certain external online resources (posted November 2011)
UCIT has partnered with InCommon to better grant access to external online resources available from education, nonprofit and government agencies.
With all the various systems and applications operating at a university, controlling who has access to which systems is complicated. When UC Information Technologies implemented the identity management system (central login) service a few years ago, that was a large step forward in simplifying the login process for users across various campus systems. Now UCIT has taken another step by joining a partnership that will simplify the process of logging into many external online resources.
This partnership, called InCommon Federation and part of Internet2, provides technology that allows the education, nonprofit and government agencies to share online resources seamlessly – without creating individual accounts, usernames, passwords, etc. Instead, with InCommon, the access is controlled by the institution that the user affiliates with, i.e. the University of Cincinnati. No longer will the storage of the identifying information be scattered across dozens of systems across the nation. The users’ information will stay right on campus; other partners will essentially authenticate against UC’s existing identity management system.
Therefore, the same username and password users have to log into most UC systems now is the same username and password users will use to log in to any system under the InCommon umbrella. And when logging into the partner system for the first time with InCommon, the users will be notified to explain exactly what information the partner requests to verify who they are (especially important for researchers). The users will have total control – they can either approve or deny access if they are uncomfortable with what information is requested.
“We see the InCommon Federation and its participants as essential to our strategy of maintaining secure identity management and facilitating access to information,” says Gary Grafe, UCIT Director of Enterprise Applications and Integration. “Not only are we eliminating the hassle of maintaining various usernames and passwords for various resources, but the partnership also allows us to spend less staff time resetting passwords and maintaining disparate authentication systems.”
The list of partners in the InCommon Federation is long and growing. UC will continue to enter into agreements with various partner institutions. Currently, the agencies we are actively participating with are:
UC will continue to seek agreements with other organizations useful to the university community.
To learn more about InCommon Federation, or federated identity in general, contact Gary Grafe at grafegw@ucmail.uc.edu.