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

2. Agenda Overview of NCTrust (Tim) K-12 in NCTrust (Mike)
Configuration Management (Steve)
Mike
Slide 2

3. 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?
Tim
Slide 3

4. Overview of NCTrust (cont.)
Also, what are the opportunities to provide collective resources in our state that are:
Cheaper
Better
Faster
Tim
Slide 4

5. 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)?
Tim
Slide 5

6. 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)
Tim
Slide 6

7. 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.
Tim
Slide 7

8. 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)
Tim
Slide 8

9. NCTrust is a Subset of InCommon Federation
Mike
Slide 9

10. Overview of NCTrust (cont.)
Pilot “ended” in May 2010.
Results published in End of Year Report available at - follow links from “Advisory & Governance.”
Now we proceed with “growing” and managing the trust.
Tim
Slide 10

11. 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.
Tim
Slide 11

12. 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
Mike
Slide 12

13. 21st 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”
Mike
Slide 13

14. 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
Mike
Slide 14

15. 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
Mike
Slide 15

16. 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.
Mike
Slide 16

17. 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?
Mike
Slide 17

18. 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.
Mike
Slide 18

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

20. Technical Issues Non-Trivial
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
Steve
Slide 20 20

21. IdP Virtual Machine Appliance
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!
Steve
Slide 21

22. Configuration Management
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
Steve
Slide 22

23. IdP Appliance Only Goes So Far
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
Steve
Slide 23 23

24. Conclusions 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
Slide 24

25. 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

26. See you in the Federation