About Identity Management

As defined by the Burton Group, Identity Management (IdM) is a combination of the business processes and supporting infrastructure required to create, maintain, and use digital identities. Identifiers, such as name, address, Social Security number (SSN), phone number, title, and employment status are a small sample of the attributes that comprise a digital identity.

Identity information can be used to determine authorization for a parking pass, the ability to login and register or schedule classes, or to access a secured server. The ability to recognize a user's access, verify the user, and provide authorization are dependent upon an IdM system. The Ohio State University currently maintains identity information for faculty, staff, students, alumni, donors, patients, affiliates, and guests in several different systems.

As a result, identity management is decentralized, which causes inconsistent practices, difficulty in matching identities, duplicate accounts, high maintenance costs and greater security risks. The Identity Management Project aims to provide a mechanism for uniform implementation of an identity management policy and provide an infrastructure that does not use Social Security numbers as the unique identifier.

More detailed project goals are on the project timeline page. The Identity Management Project Director is Greg Niemeyer (niemeyer.8).

Further Questions?

If you have a question about identity management or the identity management project, please use the form below to contact us. A member of the identity management team will respond to your inquiry as soon as possible.