InCommon makes sharing protected online resources easier

InCommon eliminates the need for researchers, students, and educators to maintain multiple passwords and usernames. Online service providers no longer need to maintain user accounts. Identity providers manage the levels of their users' privacy and information exchange. InCommon uses SAML-based authentication and authorization systems (such as Shibboleth®) to enable scalable, trusted collaborations among its community of participants.

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 are all joining the InCommon Federation. Read the full story here.

Educause Joins InCommon

Calling InCommon "a community endeavor that represents the future of how colleges and universities will enable trusted interactions with each other, government agencies, and other organizations," Educause president and CEO Diana Oblinger has announced that her organization has joined the federation. See the full story here.

Library Collaboration Seeks Comments

The InCommon Library Services Collaboration Vendor Group has produced two documents - Best Practices and a Registry of Resources. Go to the InC-Library wiki space to see the documents and provide feedback.

InCommon Accepting Self-Signed Certificates

InCommon now accepts self-signed certificates. This begins a transition of the entire federation to self-signed certificates over the next two years. Beginning January 2010, InCommon will no longer issue certificates signed by the InCommon CA. See this wiki page for more information. Also, if you missed our webinar on this topic (Oct. 22), you can view/hear the recorded Adobe Acrobat session.

New Fee Structure Takes Effect January 2010

The InCommon Steering Committee has voted unanimously to adopt a new interim tiered fee structure for 2010, as well as a process for developing a structure for 2011 and beyond. This is part of positioning InCommon for the future. More information is available on our wiki, and you can view/hear a recorded Town Hall session on the topic (from Oct. 19).

Small Schools Leveraging Large-School Solutions

John O'Keefe (Lafayette College) presented "Emerging Technologies in Higher Education: Big School Solutions to Small School Problems" in an EDUCAUSE Live webinar. He covered a lot of territory of interest to anyone involved with federating. The archived presentation is available here.

Silver Assurance Profile

Some Service Providers have identified the need to require stronger identity management procedures. Identity Providers will need more stringent requirements for validating the identities of individuals to whom they grant user IDs and passwords. As a result, InCommon continues to develop additional assurance profiles - with a Silver pilot underway. See the background and what this means for you.

Shibboleth Recommendation - New Deploys

InCommon strongly recommends that all new participants planning to use Shibboleth Federated Single Sign-on Software install and deploy version 2. Shibboleth v1.3 will no longer be supported after June 30, 2010. There are no new features being added to v1.3 and there are no guarantees that changes to the current release are backwards compatible. For more information, see http://shibboleth.internet2.edu/shib-which-version.html.

Of Interest

• Software & Protocol Support
• InCommon and Microsoft's DreamSpark FAQ
• Attribute Overview and Summary documentation
• Joining the InCommon Federation (Eligibility Criteria and Process)
• The InCommon Participation Agreement [pdf]
• The InCommon Fee Schedule
• Sponsorship Information: How to sponsor or be sponsored for federation participation

This page last updated November 23, 2009