This increasingly widespread adoption of federated access across research and education is reflected in the growth of services available via eduGAIN; more and more services providers, including those offering discounts for students appreciate the benefits of using eduGAIN global infrastructure to validate the academic affiliation of users.
InAcademia builds on eduGAIN, by enabling service providers and users to benefit from federated access, without the service having to join a national identity federation. It was created to present a unified interface towards services, to elegantly manage the complexity of the eduGAIN ecosystem while reducing the burden for Identity Providers and Federation Operators in onboarding service providers. InAcademia was designed to allow federations to offer a lighter-weight alternative to full federation membership, and particularly to introduce a new source of sustainability from commercial services that have also benefited from use of often fee-free federation membership in high-value business models.
InAcademia allows merchants to validate student, member, faculty, staff and employee claims, and is of interest to service providers that operate OIDC clients or that are unfamiliar with the world of federated academic identities.
As a result of these advantages Fédération Éducation-Recherche have now mandated that any commercial service offer products and services not directly related to education and research and wishing to benefit from federated identities in France must register with InAcademia.
“InAcademia is in line with services that we promote to our French community, specially thanks to its transparency and data privacy. It allows students to benefit from discounts without worrying about their personal data.” Anass CHABLI, Head of Security of Services Department, RENATER –
“Fédération Éducation-Recherche’s support for InAcademia is extremely positive, not least to strengthen its place in the R&E Trust and Identity service portfolio, but to mark an important milestone in the life of the service. We’re looking forward to working with Fédération Éducation-Recherche to further optimise the service in France” Michelle Williams, InAcademia Product Manager, GÉANT
Find out more at InAcademia.org
