InCommon Sponsored Partners:
Within the InCommon Federation, a Sponsored Partners is an organization that provides on-line resources or services to higher education institutions. Eligibility is outlined on our Join page. Fees are listed on the InCommon Fee Schedule.
Introduction:
InCommon, a federation for research and
education, is designed to help academic institutions manage access to resources
and services in a secure, standard way without compromising the privacy
of their users. The InCommon federation supports user access to protected
resources, for example, library information services, by allowing access
decisions to be made based on information presented by the user's home institution
about a user's status and privileges without explicitly revealing the user's
identity. This ensures that users are actually from the institution and
are authorized to access the materials thereby respecting copyright. Cost
benefits can be realized by using a single standardized approach with all
InCommon participants, eliminating the need for a different access method
with each institution.
Security requirements for access and privacy needs can be customized for individual resources and their users. Both the user and the resource participate in InCommon and have standardized information for exchange and practices to follow, so they can trust that the information being passed is accurate and trustworthy. Ease of use is another benefit. Since the user is authenticated and authorized by their home institution, proxy redirects can be eliminated, making access by the user from off-campus less problematic, and creating easier opportunities for collaboration and cross-institutional research while ensuring that access is properly authorized. InCommon is operated by Internet2 to provide consistency and participant support.
Responsibilities: The basic policies and technical requirements are outlined in the Participation Agreement, the software guidelines, and the Federation Operating Policies and Practices (FOPP) document.
To Participate: A current participating institution of higher education must first sponsor you. After you submit a signed Participation Agreement which appoints your delegated Executive, that Executive will appoint your organization's Adminstrator. Both individuals will be verified by InCommon for security and assurance. Your Administrator would then post your POP and submit your metadata and CSRs (Certificate Signing Requests) to InCommon using the secure credentials given by InCommon at the time of identity-proofing. For the full story, see the join page.
Questions: Send any questions to incommon-admin@internet2.edu.