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In the electronic self-service environment where physical cues such as inked signatures, passports, and facial expressions are absent, our assurance level that we're interacting with the right person (or the same person) is increasingly coming under question. State research and education communities increasingly rely upon a growing variety of online interactions that require satisfying multiple authentication systems with multiple user-IDs and passwords. This cumbersome and confusing state-of-affairs also increases the risk of fraud, privacy compromise and identity theft. When collaborating campuses want to streamline processes associated with shared courses and enable research partnerships among faculty, access management becomes an obstacle difficult to overcome.
This topic has been discussed for a number of years in both the StateNets and Higher Education Systems communities. Resources and services that require more efficient statewide identity and access management include: administrative (benefits enrollment), teaching and learning related resources (shared course ware, video portals, library resources), and research (Grid infrastructures), among others. The current methods used for authentication and authorization don't scale and compromise security, privacy or both. Using federated identity, the service provider's account management burden is significantly reduced and the security and privacy is increased for the participating campus or state entity.
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