Expanding Academic Horizons: How Federated Identity Can Transform Cross-Institutional Learning

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2024 has been a pivotal year for InCommon, fueled by our Futures2 Strategy pushing new explorations and investments across the community. In reviewing our 20-year history, one of this year’s initiatives stands out as having the significant potential to again transform the community in profound ways.

In researching where we could make our biggest impact, we discovered that course-sharing is a remarkably powerful and under-utilized tool in higher education, offering the opportunity to increase academic breadth without increasing costs. To explore this topic, we partnered with IDEA, a consortium of leading U.S. public universities, working together to offer online, flexible, and affordable programs in human sciences and agriculture. What makes IDEA special? They’re showing us all how true collaboration can work – creating degree programs that no single institution could offer alone. 

As with any cross-institutional effort, course-sharing brings complexity when it comes to enabling access for learners. IDEA approached InCommon with a clear challenge: Students are juggling multiple email addresses, usernames, and passwords, making for a frustrating experience when trying to access and navigate course materials provided by multiple institutions. We’re working to address this pain point with the InCommon Federation. 

So far, we’ve consulted with over 30 stakeholders across over a dozen institutions, both inside and outside of IDEA, from organizations of all sizes. This group has included a wide array of perspectives, from faculty, program coordinators, and security officers to chief information officers, identity and access management implementers, learning management system owners, and deans. 

Through this process, we’re beginning to understand that IDEA is not the only group who can benefit from leveraging federated identity for cross-institutional teaching and learning. Federated identities can support access, security, and scalability for a number of powerful use cases, including:  

• Standing up new programs by offering courses in partnership with peer universities
• Sharing library resources across institutions
• Facilitating dual-enrollment and bridge program partnerships, and
• Other creative efforts to open up access beyond university walls

We’re beginning the process to develop a Teaching & Learning Toolkit that will provide a path to leverage the InCommon Federation to enable cross-institutional access to courses and resources. The more voices involved in the creation of this resource, the stronger it will be.

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InCommon is excited to work alongside you in creating tools and pathways that make cross-institutional collaboration not just possible, but seamless. Here’s to making education more accessible, one connection at a time.