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Student Access to Federal Loan Data and Other Online Student Services. Presented by: Doug Falk National Student Clearinghouse. Agenda. Clearinghouse Overview Student Self-Service (SSS) SSS Challenges Shibboleth Implementation Shibboleth Challenges. What is the Clearinghouse?.
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Student Access to Federal Loan Data and Other Online Student Services Presented by: Doug Falk National Student Clearinghouse
Agenda • Clearinghouse Overview • Student Self-Service (SSS) • SSS Challenges • Shibboleth Implementation • Shibboleth Challenges
What is the Clearinghouse? A non-profit organization serving as a centralized educational agent in fulfilling educational reporting needs
Current Clearinghouse Participation Nationally • More than 3,200 collegiate institutions • Enrolling over 92% of all higher education students • More than 2,000 high schools
Student Self-Service (SSS) • Campus-based authentication with single sign-on to SSS • Through SSS, institutions can enable their students to perform a wide range of enrollment verification activities via the Web for free, including: • Print enrollment certificates (which they can send to health insurers, housing providers and others) • View enrollment history • Check enrollment verifications that the Clearinghouse has provided to student service providers on their behalf • View student loan deferments • Link to real-time information on their student loans via Meteor
Student Self-Service • Institution requirements: • Sign Clearinghouse SSS Agreement • Certify that they are in compliance with NIST electronic authentication guidelines for assurance level 1 (“standard” SSS access) • Optionally certify that they are in compliance with NIST electronic authentication guidelines for assurance level 2 (“enhanced” SSS access including Meteor) • Implement the Clearinghouse specified methods for server-to-server authentication • Provide proper authentication of students
SSS Challenges • Currently, there are around 500 institutions using SSS. Current challenges include: • Requires custom coding at each institution • Disparate authentication methods deployed by institutions • Clearinghouse places a high level of trust with institutions to properly authenticate students • Clearinghouse uses a proprietary method for establishing sessions • Difficulty complying with NIST authentication guidelines • Institutional use of SSN as student identifier
Shibboleth Implementation • Implementing Shibboleth will provide: • Easier implementation for participating InCommon institutions • A robust, common framework for authentication and transitive trust • A federation that governs rules for access and participation • A system based on industry standards
Shibboleth Implementation • Institution requirements: • Sign Clearinghouse SSS Agreement • Certify that they are in compliance with NIST electronic authentication guidelines for assurance level 1 (“standard” SSS access) • Optionally certify that they are in compliance with NIST electronic authentication guidelines for assurance level 2 (“enhanced” SSS access including Meteor) • Join InCommon Federation • Implement Shibboleth in accordance with InCommon specifications • Provide proper authentication of students
Shibboleth Challenges • Currently, the Clearinghouse is piloting the Shibboleth implementation with Stanford University: • Institution still must comply with NIST authentication guidelines • Clearinghouse looking at InCommon Bronze and Silver assurance levels • Institutional use of SSN as Shib Target Id • Target Id can be an institutional Student Id, however: • Clearinghouse follows PESC SchoolAssignedPersonID spec (20 characters) • Institutional desire to use an opaque ID (much longer that 20 characters) • Requires change to the Clearinghouse enrollment file extract (takes years for SIS providers to change)
Contact • Doug Falk • falk@studentclearinghouse.org • (703) 742-4212