News for and about the Internet2 community

[Dean Woodbeck <>]

InCommon Welcomes 200th Higher Education Participant

Ann Arbor, Mich. – March 28, 2010 – InCommon today announced a new milestone in its continued growth by adding its 200th higher education participant.

InCommon, operated by Internet2, provides trust services for the U.S. education and research communities which today includes an identity management Federation Service and a Certificate Service 

In addition to colleges and universities, the 282 InCommon participants include research organizations, agencies of the U.S. government, and private companies that offer web-based resources and services.  Participants can take advantage of the Federation service as well as become subscribers to the Certificate service depending on their needs.  

“We are thrilled to reach 200 institutions but believe this is just the tip of the iceberg. We continue to see heavy interest from institutions of all sizes as they recognize InCommon has become a critical component in enabling trust services beyond the campus,” said Jack Suess, chief information officer and vice president for information technology at the University of Maryland Baltimore County and chair of the InCommon Steering Committee. “Institutions of all sizes are looking to leverage the benefits of the trust services we provide in federation and certificates to improve service and save money." 

The InCommon Federation provides a secure and privacy-protecting method for giving individuals access to protected or licensed online resources, such as library databases, multimedia content, research information, and services provided by government agencies. 

Individuals use credentials from their home institutions (identity provider) to access protected resources, with the identity provider managing the identity information and guarding user privacy. The company or organization providing the online resource (the service provider) authorizes access to the online resource based on information about the user, called “attributes,” passed from the identity provider, which protects the privacy of the user. This works because all participating organizations agree on standard policies, practices and technology standards for all interactions.

InCommon greatly streamlines collaboration among multiple organizations because federation members agree on these policies and processes once, rather than each time they sign a contract with a new partner. It also improves security and privacy, as the identity provider releases only the information needed for the service provider to make an access decision. Many times, this does not require the release of even an individual’s name or other personally identifiable information.

The InCommon Certificate Service provides a cost-effective means of deploying and operating a more secure and authenticated online environment. InCommon’s higher education participants can subscribe to this separate service to obtain unlimited SSL, client and code signing digital certificates at one fixed annual fee. A subscriber can acquire unlimited certificates for all of its domains, including those hosted for professional societies, athletics, or other campus-based organizations.

For more information on InCommon and a full list of participants, visit: www.incommon.org.

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ABOUT InCOMMON
InCommon serves the U.S. education and research communities, supporting a common framework of trust services and operating the InCommon Federation, the U.S. trust federation for research and education, and the community-driven InCommon Certificate Service. The InCommon Federation enables scalable, trusted collaborations among its community of participants. Identity Providers give their users single sign-on convenience and privacy protection, while Service Providers control access to their protected resources. The Certificate Service offers unlimited certificates to the U.S.  higher education community for one fixed annual fee. For more information, see www.incommon.org.

ABOUT INTERNET2

Internet2 is an advanced networking consortium led by the research and education community. An exceptional partnership spanning U.S. and international institutions who are leaders in the worlds of research, academia, industry and government, Internet2 is developing breakthrough cyberinfrastructure technologies that support the most exacting applications of today—and spark the most essential innovations of tomorrow. Led by its members and focused on their current and future networking needs since 1996, Internet2 blends its human, IP and optical networks to develop and deploy revolutionary Internet technologies.  For more information see www.internet2.edu.