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The InCommon Federation orchestrates secure and seamless single sign-on = access to local and global research and collaboration resources for more&nb= sp;than 10 million users and nearly 800 educational institutions, research = organizations, and commercial resource providers in the United States.
Our focus on enabling research and academic collaboration means our prac= tices are tailored to suit how researchers and educators collaborate with o= ne another.
Collaboration is different in research and education than in other secto= rs of society. While the mere existence of multi-institution collaborating = groups is often tightly controlled in commercial and many governmental sett= ings, academic researchers and faculty are encouraged to work together and = exchange ideas without institutional control. University support infrastruc= tures are tuned to facilitate this.
Here are some of the ways collaboration differs in research and educatio= n:
Collaboration across institutions happens spontaneously. While there are many examples of formally created collaborations, suc= h as instructional courses and grant funded research projects, most academi= c collaborations are ad hoc, created to meet an immediate, po= ssibly short term, need. For example, a group of students might form a stud= y group while they are taking a course, or a couple of researchers may find= that they are working on the same problem and decide to join forces. = The (international) academic societies keep their members abreast of curren= t work, so collaborating researchers are likely to come from different inst= itutions.
Research draws on resources from a wide range of disciplines= . Many of today's grand challenges cannot be solved within a = single academic discipline. These collaborations must include participants = with wide-ranging areas of expertise.
Trust is often peer-to-peer between individuals, not among o= rganizations. Collaborations require trust among their participant= s. In academia, however, this trust is based on the participants' standings= in their respective fields, not on formal agreements among the participant= s or their institutions. When there are formal trust relationships, the agr= eements generally address issues of the support infrastructure, such as acc= ess to funding or other resources.
Identity is for life, but roles, even organizational affilia= tions, change. Learning is a life-long activity, establishing a re= lationship for students that starts when they apply for admission and ends = as alumni. Faculty and researchers carry their identities with them as they= take on different roles within their institution, as well as at other inst= itutions. It is even common for researchers to continue their work in colla= borations when they move to a different institution.
Technical support infrastructures for collaborations require participant= s to have authentication credentials. It is often the case that these crede= ntials can be light-weight, primarily to identify who is contributing what.= Some situations, such as those involving personal healthcare information o= r high-security equipment, require participants to have strong, well-vetted= credentials. It is rare, however, for these collaborations to have the res= ources to support issuance of these credentials; they rely on the participa= nts' home institutions for this.
Institutions that participate in InCommon create a multi-lateral federat= ed infrastructure to support the creation, maintenance, use, and eventual r= evocation of the credentials needed for academic collaboration. These insti= tutions leverage the relationship they have with their community members to= vet the identities of collaborators, issue them credentials, and maintain = current identity information about them. The credentials issued by each ins= titution can then be made available to all institutions that provide collab= oration services for the purpose of making access control decisions.
The following are aspects of this federated infrastructure.