MCommunity will track who's in and who's out

Updated 5:00 PM February 8, 2008

MCommunity will track who's in and who's out

By Janet Eaton
Information Technology Central Services communications

At a university the size of Michigan, it's not easy to track who joins and leaves the community every day as it happens. Yet as more services and resources go online, that tracking becomes more and more important. People need online access to a variety of things quickly, and when their job at U-M is done, their access needs to be removed just as fast.

MCommunity will make that possible. The new online directory and identity management system is being developed by Information Technology Central Services (ITCS) in partnership with Michigan Administrative Information Services (MAIS). It will store information about people that can be used to grant or deny them access to various online and physical resources at both the University and departmental levels.

"More and more of what we do as an institution depends on our ability to know who's in and who's out," says John King, vice provost for academic information, executive vice president for academic affairs, and professor of information.

If, for example, a University department wants to allow only current department staff members to access a Web site, MCommunity will be able to supply continually updated data about who those people are.

This complex and innovative project will include digital identity creation, an online directory with enhanced privacy features, and ways for units to get University-affiliated people into the system earlier and more easily so they can access the resources they need.

"This project is pivotal," King says. "An awful lot of what we want to do in the future depends on this project."

Adds Laura Patterson, associate vice president for Administration Information Systems, "This is the most important IT project at the University right now."

Amy Brooks, interim co-executive director of ITCS, notes that the project has enormous implications for ITCS and the University. "MCommunity will replace ITCS' current U-M Online Directory, uniqname management system and system for providing Basic Computing Package services, such as e-mail and file storage," she explains.

MCommunity will be introduced in stages over the next several years.

In June much of the infrastructure underlying the new system will be in place, but very little will be visible to end users. Staff members who create and manage uniqnames for sponsored individuals — people such as contractors, conference attendees and incoming faculty who need early access to computing resources — will begin a transition to a new tool for creating sponsored identities with uniqnames.

The most visible part of MCommunity — a new online directory — will likely be introduced in December. There will be changes in how people look up people and group entries, how they modify their own entries, and how they create and manage groups. There also will be changes in what information is available to the general public and to members of the University community.

MCommunity will provide tools that departments can use to manage departmental role information in spring 2009 and tools that departmental system administrators can use to provision their own information technology services in summer 2009.

More information about MCommunity is available at www.itcs.umich.edu/itcsdocs/r1457.

MCommunity will track who's in and who's out

More Stories