Students and staff expect and deserve the simplest access to a variety of online systems we can provide while still maintaining adequate security. Falling behind in this area may result in a loss of students, effectiveness and relevance. At present, each time a student or staff member needs to access a different online system, he or she must re-enter the login information required by that system. The colleges need a solution that would allow a user to provide her username and password once after which the solution would provide their identity securely, consistently and seamlessly to other applications for the duration of the user’s session.
At present, when accessing CIS core self-service functionality, students and staff must login and re-authenticate each time they access a particular feature. For example, creating a registration appointment requires a login for one screen; yet registering for classes requires another login. Furthermore, if a student or staff member wants to access information at a different college, they must submit yet another, different set of credentials, also on a feature by feature basis. For example: if a student accesses their transcript at one college and then would like to access their class schedule from a different college, the student must enter two sets of credentials.
Colleges have also deployed other home-grown and third-party solutions, each with its own authentication process. Colleges expect to deploy additional third-party and home-grown systems in the future as well. While the CIS core applications generally use SID and Global or Quarterly PIN for login purposes, third-party applications require a different login credentials. Furthermore, many of these third-party solutions such as ePortoflio, Blackboard, WebCT, library catalogs and online databases, campus email, and network login present their own processes to allow staff and students to maintain accounts and related passwords.
Such a multiplicity of dissimilar codes and processes make recall and management of login information problematic, resulting in counter-productive behaviors:
Private, for-profit, and 4-year college online systems are using simplified login techniques and are more feature rich than the Washington Community and Technical College (WCTC) systems. With every year that passes, a new set of students bring new expectations to their engagement with WCTC systems. Increasingly, students expect a higher quality experience than the colleges are currently able to provide, particularly in the area of ease of access and ease of use. Without simplified sign-on we can expect to lose students and enrollment, due to discouragement, disillusionment with the ease of access to online services.
When access to self-service tools is cumbersome, students and staff are more likely to contact Technical Support or other college staff for assistance, resulting in declines in staff productivity, increases in staff workload, and increasing IT costs.
The following paragraphs should perhaps be in the “Initial Project Purpose Definition” document, since its purpose is to define vision, goals and objectives; we offer these comments as a beginning for that document if desired, rather than inclusion in this “needs” document.
A user (student or staff) selects an application or service and is automatically redirected to a login portal, where he/she provides basic information such as a login and password for verification. This verified information is then provided automatically to other systems as the student moves from one system to another. For example, they select a student information system to change their address and obtain a summary of their credit and course information, then select a scheduling system to get meeting location and time information, and on their online course system they are granted access to their course where they participate in discussions or review their assignment due dates. One login and password provides them with access to a variety of systems.
Improving access to network resources and managing the identity life-cycle can provide significant dividends such as:
The simple sign-on process becomes the front door to applications on centrally located Center for Information Systems (CIS) servers and to applications at individual colleges. It ties applications and authentication processes together, making it easy for students to use applications without having to login to each and every application. The main goals of the simple sign-on project include: