JISC

As recent events in the political world have shown, all of us are affected by how organisations manage our identity, and all of us need to become aware of the importance of sound identity management. This is as true in education and research as it is in everyday life.

Following two 12-month projects to investigate identity management in higher education and the levels of assurance needed to prove an individual’s identity, JISC has just published two reports which both provide important findings on higher education’s current practice and approaches to identity management.‘Identity is becoming increasingly important in society, meaning that students and staff in further and higher education are starting to ask what their institution is doing to manage their identities.'

The Identity Project report reviews how identity is being addressed across UK higher education and, in more detail, at 10 representative institutions. Identifying the need for greater understanding of some of the key issues involved in identity management, it also calls for improved documentation and standards, greater awareness and training amongst staff and the introduction of regular audits to ensure implementation of appropriate measures across the institution.  

Levels of assurance (LoAs) are about how much proof is needed of an individual’s identity to access online resources; whether via a simple user name and password or a more complex system of biometrics and tokens. The JISC report on levels of assurance looks at how LoAs can be defined, agreed and then applied to different resources.

Among the findings of this report is that 70% of respondents think that more valuable or sensitive resources should be protected by a stronger form of user identification and authentication than they currently have. Furthermore, almost all respondents (92%) were willing to respect national or international standards in this area, underlying the importance of national approaches and the interoperability of standards.   

James Farnhill, JISC programme manager said: ‘Identity is becoming increasingly important in society, meaning that students and staff in further and higher education are starting to ask what their institution is doing to manage their identities. This means that all systems, including those in functions not normally associated with identity such as HR and Finance, are going to have to face the new challenges being posed by identity. JISC is addressing identity management in a number of ways, including the commissioning and publication of these important reports, in order to help institutions offer enhanced services to their staff and students in a safe environment.’

For further information, please go to:  Identity and ESLOA

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