DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION / MCNC The National Report: State, K-12, and Federal Government CAMP: June 23 rd, 2010, 10:45-11:45 Presenters: Tim Poe – Sr. Collaborative Technologist at MCNC Mike Veckenstedt, Ph.D – CTO/Deputy CIO at NC-DPI Steve Thorpe – Systems Analyst at MCNC

DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION / MCNC Agenda (A) Overview of NCTrust (Tim) (B) K-12 in NCTrust (Mike) (C) Configuration Management (Steve) Slide 2

DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION / MCNC Overview of NCTrust Now that we have the NCREN for K- 20, what are the opportunities to: Collaborate between campuses? Break down the silos between public universities/independents/community colleges/K-12? Collaborate with campuses in other states and nations? Slide 3

DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION / MCNC Overview of NCTrust (cont.) Also, what are the opportunities to provide collective resources in our state that are: Cheaper Better Faster Slide 4

DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION / MCNC Overview of NCTrust (cont.) And how can we provide granular access so that the right people get access to the right resources at the right time (or not)? Slide 5

DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION / MCNC Overview of NCTrust (cont.) The CSWG (Collaborative Services Working Group) is a part of the MCNC/NCREN Advisory Structure. Co- chaired by: CIO of the public university system (UNC GA) CIO of the community college system (NCCCS) CIO for state K-12 (NC DPI) Independent representation (CIO of Elon University) Slide 6

DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION / MCNC Overview of NCTrust (cont.) Federated Identity Management Task Force established (Chairs Mark Scheible and Mike Veckenstedt) Comprised of the best and brightest identity management experts in NC Recognition that a K-20 solution needed (not just higher education) Group determined early on to utilize InCommon, largely due to value of legal framework. Slide 7

DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION / MCNC Overview of NCTrust (cont.) A pilot project was created: Two K-12 Districts (Rockingham County &, Davie County) Three Universities (UNC-Chapel Hill, Duke University, NC State University) Two Community Colleges (Central Piedmont CC, Wake Tech CC), Two Other Organizations (NC DPI and MCNC) Two primary SPs (NC LIVE and VCL) Slide 8

DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION / MCNC NCTrust is a Subset of InCommon Federation Slide 9

DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION / MCNC Overview of NCTrust (cont.) Pilot “ended” in May Results published in End of Year Report available at - follow links from “Advisory & Governance.” Now we proceed with “growing” and managing the trust. Slide 10

DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION / MCNC Overview of NCTrust (cont.) Success to date do to: Platforms (CSWG and eLearning Commission) for K-20 collaboration. Immense amounts of expertise and good will from all sectors of K-20. Persistent belief in achieving a vision that relies on each organization knowing who its members are, what their roles are, and the benefits of collaboration and shared resources. Slide 11

DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION / MCNC K-12 in NCTrust 115 School Districts with ~ 2,500 schools ~97 Charter Schools ~1.4 mill students (K12) 17 UNC system institutions 58 community colleges 36 independent colleges / universities Plus many others Slide 12

DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION / MCNC 21 st Century Learning (K-12) K-12 moves into P-20: Schools, Colleges and Universities “converging” Learn-And-Earn: NC program Virtual Public Schools Student, Teacher, Parents are all part of the student’s education “Streamlining student account administration” Slide 13

DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION / MCNC Teacher and Staff Time Is Valuable 2 min per student per year for account administration, focusing on Middle and High School ~ 3000 admin work days statewide (K6-12) Times logins for Network, Media-Center, Lunch, Study Island, Moodle, etc. (~5) => 15,000 work days Slide 14

DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION / MCNC Other Important Benefits of FIM Systems- and Data Security Decentralized Account Administration works; Centralized Administration doesn’t. Staff joining/leaving Parents/Guardians associated to a student Use of other Educational Resources Virtual Computing Lab iTunes University NC-Live Slide 15

DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION / MCNC Statewide Rollout in K-12 Selected CIMS Project: Computerized Instructional Management System – Teacher Tool, Testing Students Online. Included two School Districts Shibbolized Identity Mmt Systems. Vendor became SP. Pilot ended in May successfully. Slide 16

DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION / MCNC Attribute Release Policy Lots of discussion – still unclear what the total set of released attributes will be… Student Identifier seems to be a good one. What about: Age? Grade? Special Needs? Slide 17

DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION / MCNC Some Challenges … Membership Management of 100+ School Districts. Legalities, Responsibilities Central Meta-Data Management How do you build a business case one SP at time? One project cannot pay for all infrastructure. Readiness of K-12 software vendors. Slide 18

DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION / MCNC … even more Challenges Available staff at School Districts Technical Skills of Local School District Staff 10 month Employees. Maintenance of the NCTrust/Shibboleth Infrastructure Slide 19

DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION / MCNC Technical Issues Non-Trivial Slide 20 Requires understanding of many layers XML Web application server configuration, X509 certificates IdP and SP packaging OS configuration Managing software updates Network configuration, etc. This is can be challenging, especially for smaller institutions

DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION / MCNC IdP Virtual Machine Appliance Slide 21 MCNC developed a customizable VM for the NCTrust federation participants Guest OS is CentOS Host OS can be Windows or Linux, running Xen or VMware Preconfigured to use NCTrust Metadata (subset of InCommon’s) Customized for each NCTrust member This helped a LOT!

DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION / MCNC Configuration Management Slide 22 MCNC’s Automated Configuration Management System Rapid building and replicating of customized OS installs Automated deployment of patching and reconfigurations Delta among IdPs is small Only ~15 small files are different, totaling just ~150KB Rest of the appliance is same for all

DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION / MCNC IdP Appliance Only Goes So Far Slide 23 Each institution is unique Back-end Identity Infrastructure Technical Skill Set Considerable ramp-up effort is still required at each organization Centralized NCTrust Federation IdP Hosting? NCTrust is looking at options for this Probably this is much more scalable for NC’s K-12 community

DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION / MCNC Conclusions Slide 24 It works…, even in K-12! How can we finalize an Attribute Release policy for K-12 / P-20? Skill set requirements are challenging. More vendors have to become SPs Scaling requires New organizational thinking Cloud-like computing

DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION / MCNC Thank You Also thanks to the many Federated ID Task Force members from throughout the NCREN community that are participating with us in the NCTrust pilot project More Info: Link: Tim Poe: Mike Veckenstedt: Steve Thorpe: Slide 25

See you in the Federation