Institutions of Higher Education: InCommon

Participation in InCommon is open to two- and four-year, degree-granting academic institutions that are accredited by a U.S. Department of Education Regional Institutional Accrediting Agency. Eligibility for all participants is outlined on our Join page. Fees are listed on the InCommon Fee Schedule.

The InCommon Federation allows Higher Education Institutions to share information and resources between themselves and their business partners in a trusted, standardized fashion that protects privacy, respects copyright, and fosters collaboration and innovation. Trust decisions between participants can be made based on information about users shared in a standardized format. The information shared is not personally identifiable but relays attributes about the user, such as whether they are a student or faculty and with which department they are affiliated. A decision to allow access can be made based on that information, allowing control over access to resources to be retained. Both the user and the resource participate in InCommon through agreed upon practices, so the level of accuracy and trustworthiness of shared information is known.

Since a user's identity can be vouched for by their home institution, InCommon eliminates the need for researchers, students, and educators to maintain multiple, password-protected accounts at many different locations. Furthermore, security requirements for access and privacy needs can be customized for individual resources and their users. This approach can create cost savings for institutions as they no longer have to expend resources on creating, managing, and monitoring outside or multiple accounts. Additional cost benefits can be realized by using a single standardized approach with all commercial resource providers, eliminating the need for a different access method with each provider. InCommon is operated by Internet2 to provide consistency and participant support.

Responsibilities: Given the primary mission of InCommon is to build trust between participants, institutions must agree at an executive level to adhere to the terms and conditions of federation participation. InCommon requires that participants make available to other participants certain basic information about how they verify identity, distribute user accounts, and manage information on their campus. See the participation and technical requirements on the Join page.