Resources
The SIF Association brings together the developers and vendors of school technology with the federal, state and local educators who use that technology. To define the rules for efficient, accurate and automatica data movement between applications in the SIF Specification.
Case Studies
United Kingdom
In the United Kingdom, Becta and JISC have devoted significant funds to investigate and implement new technologies. Central to these developments is the UK Access Management Federation for Education and Research, which was launched in November 2006.
The UK federation provides the UK schools, further and higher education and research sectors with a framework for accessing online learning material by using identity management software, such as Shibboleth. This gives institutions a route to single sign-on to resources through the implementation of federated, devolved authentication.
Federated Access Management Benefits Overview
Becta and The UK Access Management Federation for education and research (PPT)
In the slide deck, John Chapman, Project Technical Advisor for Becta, mentions that for most applications, eduPersonScopedAffiliation (e.g. student@mtu.edu) and eduPersonTargedID (an anonymous identifier) are the primary attributes exchanged in their experience. See slide 14.
Dr. Chapman's slides from our March 18 call are located here.