Blog from March, 2017

MCNC Onboards Three Organizations into InCommon Steward Program

The InCommon Steward Program proof of concept is now well underway, with MCNC having registered three Identity Providers (IdPs) as Represented Constituents.

1. Davie County Schools in North Carolina signed an agreement with MCNC to become the first Represented Constituent (RC) under the Steward Program. Its IdP was registered on January 30, 2017.

2. Rockingham County Schools and Davidson County Community College became the second and third RCs under the Steward Program. Their IdPs were registered on March 7, 2017.


The proof of concept established three primary goals for February–March. We made considerable headway as two goals were met by mid-March. We continue our steady progress to meet or surpass these goals.

1. Secure two signed Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) documents for service providers (resource) to facilitate federated access for MCNC’s RCs. MCNC continues to pursue MOUs with several organizations.

2. Register an IdP for at least one institution with the ability to interoperate with some federated service.

   1. Davie County Schools, Rockingham County Schools, and Davidson County Community College became registered IdPs between January and early March.
3. Promote the success of the program utilizing MCNC’s and InCommon’s multiple communications channels. The following media releases were distributed in February and March.

   1. FIM: Three letters with infinite possibilities for NC education (+ video) (03.06.17)

   2. MCNC and Internet2 celebrate federated ID milestone with Davie County Schools (02.08.17)

   3. MCNC to extend trust, identity solutions to K-12, community colleges (11.07.16)


Background

In November 2016, MCNC, the non-profit operator of the North Carolina Research and Education Network (NCREN), introduced a first-in-the-nation, proof of concept to extend InCommon Federated Identity Management (FIM) technologies beyond universities. Under this Steward Program, K-12 schools and community colleges in North Carolina would have the ability to use secure local credentials to safely access a wide array of online educational resources. MCNC acts as the Steward for North Carolina institutions in the program, managing and supporting organizational trust to facilitate participation in the national FIM system.