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November 24, 2009, 03:00 PM ET
U. of Texas System Signs Up With Password-Streamlining Service
For more than two years, the University of Texas system figured its students and faculty members could handle having multiple usernames and passwords. Not anymore.
After initially refusing in 2007, the Texas system has agreed to join a growing number of institutions in the InCommon Federation. InCommon is an organization that makes services like JSTOR, a digital archive of scholarly journals, and Turnitin, a plagerism-detection program, all easily accessible with one username and password per user. InCommon also determines which people get access to which services. As a Chronicle article in 2007 put it, the service is like a bouncer that lets people in if they have the right wristband. InCommon also allows for participating institutions with a common framework to better share online resources.
The Texas system was reluctant to sign up in 2007 because even though InCommon had a large list of user classes to determine security clearance, there is no classification for pediatric physicians, and that's something the Texas system needed, according to Clair W. Goldsmith, senior adviser for information technology.
But now, according to a press release from the InCommon Federation, the Texas system is signing on to provide its nine campuses with better online resources.
InCommon serves almost four million individuals at 181 participating organizations.
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