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Microsoft is partnering with eAcademy e-academy to enable Microsoft Work at Home licensees to download licensed software electronically.
To verify the licensee's identity/eligibility, there is proposal to do so via Shibboleth.
eAcademy e-academy is already a member of InCommon. It has also completed similar integration with member schools in several federations.
Status
August 12, 2010
The UC Trust subgroup met with eAcademy via conference call to discuss options for asserting individual's eligibility to download MS software under MCCA. Two options were discussed. eAcademy can support either.
| Option 1 - Shibboleth Attribute Assertion | Option 2 - Back Channel Data Feed |
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Description | Campus IDP aggregates local MCCA eligibility data and transforms it into eduPersonEntitlement values. | Campus prepares back channel data feed, either via IDM office or Software Licensing office and delivers to eAcademy. eAcademy resolves individual's eligibility using supplied feed and user identifier (most likely ePPN) coming through Shibboleth. |
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Con |
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There were a few additional details:
- Under UC's MCCA license terms, departments can selectively license individual software products. That means the campus will need to somehow express not only who is eligible, but also for which software the individual can download.
- Even though we want to have a consistent data provisioning mechanism from the UC Trust perspective, e-academy can and is willing to support different integration options by campus.
- So far, UCLA and UCI are definitely going forward. UCD most likely will do so. UCSC is following with keen interest.
Action Items:
- Albert will write up a proposed design spec for Option 1.
- We need volunteer to write up in greater detail how the back channel feed will work. In particular, we need to define data format and transmission mechanism.
- UC Trust to discuss at the Aug. meeting (update: the Aug. UC Trust meeting was canceled. We'd most likely move this to the UC Trust discussion list)
History
June 2010
Tom Trappler reports that based on his conversation with Microsoft, the campuses do need to assert individuals' eligibility. The individual cannot self-identify.
May 14, 2010
A subgroup of UC Trust members have expressed interest to move ahead with integration. UCLA recently met with eAcademy. Albert updated the UC Trust subgroup on 5/14:via email:
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Hello everyone:
I have updates from Tom Trappler and eAcademy. We had a prelim call with eAcademy sales to coordinate the bigger call. Instead, they brought their engineers. So we took the opportunity to find out some details:
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