EXLIP for Higher Education

[Randy Frank <>]

Dear Internet2 Campus Executive Representative:

We are soliciting input from campuses about their current uses and future needs for two factor authentication as part of the user authentication process.  In many cases the following request may be best handled by someone else on your staff, so you may simply want to forward this to a more appropriate staff person such as your CTO, CISO, or Identity management director.  We would appreciate an appropriate person on your campus taking the time to respond as the results will significantly influence our efforts in this area. 

Within various communities of Internet2/InCommon, the need for two factor authentication for a number of applications for students, faculty, and staff continues to be discussed.  We are in the very early stages of understanding whether a coordinated approach to this issue, most probably integrated within InCommon, makes sense.  As this will not be an insignificant undertaking if we go ahead, we want to make sure that we have as much information as we can get about what campuses are currently doing and future thinking to determine whether such as undertaking by InCommon makes sense at this time.

To accomplish this, we are conducting a survey on applications of 2-factor authentication on our campuses.  The focus of the survey is to better understand the existing and potential future uses of this technology at our institutions, and whether one or a series of products and services integrated into the existing InCommon trust federation makes sense at this time.  We are trying to get at least a representative sample before the Fall Member Meeting in early October so we can present the initial results back to the community at that times, so an early response would be appreciated.

If your school presently uses 2-factor authentication or if you have in the past even thought about a potential deployment, please take 10 to 15 minutes to fill in the survey at the link below.  We understand that you do get deluged by surveys, but this one will actually determine if we initiate a major effort in this space or simply defer at this time, so your input is very important.

Survey Link:  <https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/BJKZKHH>

In case you would like to look at an off-line copy of the survey prior to completing it or to determine who on your campus is best equipped to answer the questions, you can find a copy at

http://www.incommonfederation.org/cert/doc/InCommon-2-Factor-Survey.pdf

Thank you for spending the time to help us understand how we may better meet the needs of our campuses in this important area.  Also, thanks to the InCommon PKI Technical Advisory Committee for developing this survey.  Finally, we apologize if you get multiple copies of this request, but we are trying to ensure that it is sent out to a broad cross-section of campus representatives so we can get a good and comprensive response.

Randy Frank
Sr, Director for New Business Development
Internet2

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