News for and about the Internet2 community

[Lauren Rotman <>]

EDUCAUSE CATALYST AWARD HONORS INTERNET2’S MIDDLEWARE INITIATIVE AND  
INCOMMON FEDERATION

ANN ARBOR, Mich. – September 11, 2009 – Internet2 is pleased to  
announce that the Internet2 Middleware Initiative, and the U.S.  
national identity federation InCommon, are being recognized with the  
2009 EDUCAUSE Catalyst Award. This award honors information technology- 
based innovations that provide groundbreaking solutions to major  
challenges in higher education.

"EDUCAUSE is proud to honor the ongoing contributions of federated  
identity management efforts such as the Internet2 Middleware  
Initiative and the InCommon Federation,” said Diana Oblinger, EDUCAUSE  
President and CEO. “These programs, and others like them around the  
world, offer the potential to greatly facilitate technology-based  
collaboration in teaching, learning, and research throughout higher  
education. We look forward to recognizing them formally at the  
EDUCAUSE Annual Conference this November in Denver."

The 2009 Catalyst Award recognizes federated identity management, a  
set of technologies and standards that allow individuals to use their  
organizational credentials, for example a user ID and password, to  
access a variety of web-based resources, such as library databases,  
research data, student career services, and business process services.

“Shibboleth and InCommon have become vital components of our IT  
infrastructure,” says Kevin Morooney, chief information officer at  
Penn State University. “Penn State faculty and students use the  
federation to access course management systems, other teaching and  
learning service, training materials, and we use it to outsource  
business processes. This saves us time and money and allows us to  
expand services without purchasing new hardware. By using the  
federation, we also know that we're doing a better job of protecting  
the privacy of members of the Penn State community."

The Internet2 Middleware Initiative led the development of Shibboleth  
and continues to provide ongoing development and support for the  
project. Shibboleth is the community-developed, open-source software  
that has enabled the growth of privacy-preserving federations. The  
software allows a person to use one user ID and password to access  
protected resources and allows the home institution, and the  
individual, to release only the information necessary to access an  
outside resource. This preserves individual privacy and provides  
greater data security for the institution.

The Internet2 Middleware Initiative was also instrumental in the  
development of the OASIS Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML)  
standard, which Shibboleth uses to exchange identity data between  
federated partners. SAML, the most widely-used protocol for federation  
worldwide, acts as an "Internet protocol for identity," enabling  
disparate systems to interact reliably and securely across all sectors  
of society.

The Internet2 Middleware Initiative also created the InCommon  
Federation, which was the next logical step in single sign-on  
deployment. For single sign-on to work across a large number of  
organizations, there must be a shared common environment of trust.  
Trust is based on secure operations, stable technology, and common  
policies and practices. The InCommon Federation, and its peer identity  
federations around the world, manage this trusted environment for  
their members. By joining InCommon, the U.S. national identity  
federation, an organization is assured that it can interact with all  
other federation members.

InCommon now has more than 160 organizational members and serves more  
than 3.6 million users.

Both InCommon and Shibboleth were created with support from the  
National Science Foundation. Worldwide adoption was driven by the  
efforts of the Internet2 community, EDUCAUSE, international partners,  
and a host of universities and colleges of all sizes.

In addition to Internet2 and InCommon, the Catalyst Award acknowledges  
the United Kingdom federation, managed by JISC (Joint Information  
Systems Committee) and the SWITCH Federation in Switzerland, as  
exemplars of the many organizations managing federated identity  
systems worldwide. The award will be presented at the EDUCAUSE 2009  
Annual Conference in Denver, November 3-6, 2009.

To read the full EDUCAUSE announcement, visit:  
http://www.educause.edu/About+EDUCAUSE/PressReleases/EDUCAUSEHonorsTwoTransformativ/179279

About InCommon:

InCommon is the U.S. national identity federation serving higher  
education and its partners, including U.S. government agencies and  
research labs, companies and corporations, and K-12 school districts.  
InCommon eliminates the need for researchers, students, and educators  
to maintain multiple passwords and usernames. Online service providers  
no longer need to maintain user accounts. Identity providers manage  
the levels of their users' privacy and information exchange. InCommon,  
the uses SAML-based authentication and authorization systems (such as  
Shibboleth) to enable scalable, trusted collaborations among its  
community of participants. For more information: www.incommon.org

About Internet2:

Internet2 is the foremost U.S. advanced networking consortium. Led by  
the research and education community since 1996, Internet2 promotes  
the missions of its members by providing both leading-edge network  
capabilities and unique partnership opportunities that together  
facilitate the development, deployment and use of revolutionary  
Internet technologies. Internet2 brings the U.S. research and academic  
community together with technology leaders from industry, government  
and the international community to undertake collaborative efforts  
that have a fundamental impact on tomorrow's Internet.




For more information: www.internet2.edu

For press/media contact:

Lauren Rotman
Internet2
Phone: (202)331-5345
Email: