News

e2Campus Adds Single Sign-on with Shibboleth

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 11/13/09

Omnilert has released a version of its notification system, e2Campus version 3.1, which integrates the Shibboleth single sign-on platform. The new capability allows users to log into their home site and gain access to other applications without having to sign into each separately.

The new release also includes enhanced user management for adding single users and viewing user details; enhanced session timeout functionality; and the ability to configure password strength for administrative accounts.

The single sign-on functionality in e2Campus uses standards maintained by InCommon, a trust federation in which members like Omnilert agree to use a standards-based authentication protocol (like that provided by Shibboleth) for their interactions.

"One of the primary goals of federations like InCommon is to allow universities to provide access to a wide range of off-campus resources while still protecting the security and privacy of their students, faculty, and staff," said Kevin Morooney, the incoming chair of the InCommon Steering Committee as well as CIO and vice provost for IT at Pennsylvania State University. "We who are involved with InCommon are pleased that this new release of e2Campus takes advantage of the benefits of the federation."

The initial Omnilert InCommon interface was developed in partnership with both Penn State and the University of Maryland Baltimore County. The latter institution has begun using the new version of e2Campus.

"We are extremely pleased with the Shibboleth implementation in e2Campus, which allows us much greater flexibility in the way we provide our critical emergency notifications to our faculty, students, and staff through the InCommon Federation," said Mike Carlin, assistant vice president of infrastructure and support at U Maryland Baltimore County. "We are most excited about the dynamic real-time updates to stay on top of user churn. When students, faculty or staff leave the university, we can automatically remove them from e2Campus. In addition, we can focus internal marketing to the select people that still need to opt-in to e2Campus, without bothering those that have already subscribed."

Other early adopters include the University of Maryland Baltimore and Lafayette College in Easton, PA.