The project addresses the current practice and future needs of UK academic institutions in Identity Management. The Identity Management issues which are investigated include Grid use, Shibboleth installations of varying degree of maturity, collaborative courses and other long term inter-institutional collaborations, internal and shared dynamic virtual organisations, classes of users other than standard staff/student mix, library access schemes, and NHS involvement.

The Identity Project

The broad aim of the project was to investigate and document the detailed Identity Management (IDM) situation in UK higher education and to produce outputs to assist academic institutions in the UK wishing to take part in the newly emerging federated world in understanding what they need from their own IDM to enable this.

Executive Summary

There were two major strands to the investigation:

  • a broad survey of the current state of IDM in UK HE; 51 of the 184 UK HEIs responded plus 4 other organisations
  • in-depth audits of IDM practices at the 10 partner institutions

These two major investigative work packages resulted in a great deal of raw data about the current state of IDM in UK HE. This raw data led to the project producing seven reports, each of which may be viewed.

A summary of the conclusions of all the reports is available.

The experience gained through the 10 audits has been consolidated into a Research Guide which will be of value to other institutions wishing to evaluate their IDM systems or embark on an IDM project. There is considerable demand for an IDM toolkit and guidelines. A follow-up project proposal is being developed which will be submitted to the Programme Manager for consideration.

 

Report available electronically only. Read the final report below.

 

Documents & Multimedia

Summary
Author
Joan Wright
Publication Date
9 November 2007
Publication Type
Projects
Committees
Topic
Strategic Themes