InCommon Student Collaboration - March 16, 2012

Attending:

Jim Bouse, University of Oregon
Tim Cameron, National Student Clearinghouse
Louis Hunt, North Carolina State University
Nate Klingenstein, Internet2
Jim Leous, Penn State
Arnie Miles, Georgetown
Dave Moldoff, AcademyOne
Harry Nicolos, North Carolina State University
Vince Timbers, Penn State
Dean Woodbeck, Internet2/InCommon (scribe)

Collaborative Scenarios - #5 Admissions Admin and IT

https://spaces.at.internet2.edu/x/IaCVAQ

The group reviewed scenario #5, which discusses how CommIT could simplify the admissions process by reducing the number of duplicate records, as well as reduce the number of accounts created for the online admissions portal. If a university had the CommIT credentials and an associated identifier (which a student would receive when taking the ACT or SAT), services and events could be linked. It was agreed that this scenario is accurate and demonstrates the value for the admissions office.

There was also discussion about paying attention to adding value for the College Board and ACT. It might help, for example, if credentials were created when a student takes the PSAT, but there is currently no online registration process involving the student – that is taken care of by the high school.

There are also questions about whether students of that age (high school sophomore) would remember/retain the credential (and if the associate email address would remain throughout the high school career). It would cause real problems if a student had an account, for instance, then at some point created a second account. It was suggested that a deeper discussion with ACT and the College Board might be in order to learn how they ensure against duplicate accounts. This becomes stickier as people take both standardized tests.

There may be a need for the CommIT project to somehow check for duplicates. Nate suggested three possible ways to do this:

1. Constrain how students enter the system. If they use a standard K-12 account, we could count on that and it would require much less matching.
2. Institute a dupe-catching process at the CommIT IdP.
3. When a new account is created at the CommIT IdP, CommIT sends queries to partners and ask if they have someone who sounds a lot like this (serious privacy issues here).

These three options need to be documented – this seems like a Phase 2 requirement.

There are also questions about how a student move would be handled (new school, new K-12 account, for instance).

This discussion about matching would be a good topic for the technical call.

It was agreed to remove “draft” from the status of scenario #5.

Next Meeting

Friday, March 30, 2012 – 3 pm EDT / 2 pm CDT / 1 pm MDT / Noon PDT