Password Management for Pupils - Cloud Services

[mullet_man]

Hi,

 

Not sure this is the best place to ask this.

 

We subscribe to a many online services for the pupils Doddle, Vivo, Pearson, Pixl etc. The amount of username and passwords the students need to remember is ever increasing and as a result starting to become a problem due to the number of them they have to remember.

 

One suggestion was have all services match usernames to the school usernames which wasn't possible due to some not being able to allow custom usernames.

 

How do others deal with such issues? Am sure we aren't the only ones in this situation.

 

Is there any piece of software that can help store logins for pupils?

[Edu-IT]

We use RM Unify.

[tekins]

Impero do something - YouID I believe it's called.

[mullet_man]

Thanks for the replies, I'll check them both out.

[russdev]

Thanks for the replies, I'll check them both out.

 

Let us know if got any question over YouID etc

 

Russell

[dhicks]

Is there any piece of software that can help store logins for pupils?

 

Clever is designed to solve exactly this problem:

 

https://clever.com/

 

It acts as a single location for your pupils to log in to, then provides data about each pupil to each client application, limited to what the administrator allows. Clever isn't available in the UK at the moment, though.

 

There are a number of mechanisms you can use for single sign-on, OAuth seems to be the most popular, but it depends which particular OAuth sites a particular service supports. Several places now support using Google for SSO - also Facebook and Twitter, although are probably less relevant for a school. Our school's VLE, Firefly, supports OAuth-style SSO, but there's a rather limited set of third party sites that support it.

[mullet_man]

Clever is designed to solve exactly this problem:

 

https://clever.com/

 

It acts as a single location for your pupils to log in to, then provides data about each pupil to each client application, limited to what the administrator allows. Clever isn't available in the UK at the moment, though.

 

There are a number of mechanisms you can use for single sign-on, OAuth seems to be the most popular, but it depends which particular OAuth sites a particular service supports. Several places now support using Google for SSO - also Facebook and Twitter, although are probably less relevant for a school. Our school's VLE, Firefly, supports OAuth-style SSO, but there's a rather limited set of third party sites that support it.

 

Thanks for the info DHicks

 

Let us know if got any question over YouID etc

 

Russell

 

Hi Russell,

 

Can you tell me more about YouID? Our dilemma at the moment is we subscribe to a few online resources Vivo, Doddle, SMHW, Pearson and probably a few more. Students are forever forgetting login's for these services etc.

 

Cheers

 

Stevo.

[russdev]

Hi Stevo sure can put but will take it offline and will pm you. As don't want to break any rules eyc.

[dhicks]

sure can put but will take it offline and will pm you.

 

Any chance we can keep the discussion here, as I'd quite like to know more details of Impero's service too? You can keep it impartial by pointing out any bits that your competitors do better :-)

[russdev]

Do better no can't think of anything

 

I will keep it on the thread if people and op are ok with that.

[mullet_man]

Do better no can't think of anything

 

I will keep it on the thread if people and op are ok with that.

 

Totally fine by me.

[russdev]

YouID helps manage your cloud based apps in which they are provided with Webtop which is like a desktop in the cloud. The idea is providing simplified login process for cloud based apps which means you don't have to enter your username and password.

 

This can be done one of several ways via login protocols such as Shibboleth or via what we call personal apps method in which you can add websites that don't support other login protocols. As for apps would need to check I know Show My Homework is OK. Will have to come back to you over others but think should be OK. We do have some USP such as our question based self service password.

[mullet_man]

Thanks Russell, we haven't rolled out SMHW fully as yet, and it seems students aren't required to login to this to see what homework they have set.

[russdev]

Also should mention password reset integrates with v4 so can change password from login screen. You also can change password on youid and it changes password on your ad.

[Edu-IT]

Can YouID auto create accounts on first sign in to a service? Is there Office365 integration? Does it sign users in as soon as they hit the website, if they are on a school computer?

[jon-senso]

Hi guys, I'll keep it factual and this info is on our website or brochures:

Youid will replicate your ad in the cloud so you can manage it anywhere. Then when you create ad users it will auto provision office 365 accounts and any other federated applications for each student. If you have impero, it will take their Windows login and seamlessly sign then into their web apps. Otherwise, they only log into youid website once with their ad credentials then they are seamlessly signed into all their web apps without logging in to each.

 

RM unify can do some of this and we both have advantages over the other. I won't list our advantages otherwise this becomes a pitch which it's not

 

Hope this helps clarify.

Edited November 25, 2014 by jon-senso

[dhicks]

This can be done one of several ways via login protocols such as Shibboleth or via what we call personal apps method in which you can add websites that don't support other login protocols.

 

How do you go about this - I'd assume it's on a site-by-site basis, where you've written some code to pass in login details to a third-party website however works best for that site? Are there auto-provisioning facilities for these third-party sites, or at least some kind of statistics page that tells administrators if they've got a user in Active Directory that's not listed on a third party's website so they can be set up?

[russdev]

In effect you have 3 kinds of apps in YouID

 

Federated Apps - Using some kind of login protocol for example Shibboleth

Personal Apps - These are custom apps we have already added for you

Custom Apps - These have been added by school.

 

Personal & custom apps use a browser extension and the same browser extension can be used to help you add your custom apps as well.

 

We have personal apps to save you time as got lot of common Education Apps listed ready in fact before Christmas should be going live with load more. Also when got some apps with interesting login pages we can do some back-end coding work to get them to work.

 

You are in control you add apps to allow certain year groups to see the app and then those users can add to WebTop. Since upgrade at weekend you can make an app mandatory which means that you can force users to have certain icons on the Webtop.

 

We also have number of interesting things in works both before BETT and after BETT

 

Russell

[dhicks]

Personal & custom apps use a browser extension and the same browser extension can be used to help you add your custom apps as well.

 

Ah, so something like the LastPass (or similar) plugin that remembers you password details for a particular site? How easy is this plugin to install around a typical school's system? How's about user's own / home devices? What platforms does it support - Windows, Linux, iOS, Android, ChromeOS?

 

You are in control you add apps to allow certain year groups to see the app and then those users can add to WebTop.

 

So WebTop is rather like the Windows 8 Start Screen - a single (scrollable?) screen with nice big icons for people to click / touch that launch them straight in to their own account on a third party website? Is this embedable inside a VLE - the default homepage for all our in-school browsers is set to our VLE, so users see their account as soon as they start a web browser, could we embed a WebTop start screen in an iFrame and have users able to go to other websites straight from the start screen? Even better, does your plugin support going to a particular URL / location within a third-party website once logged in, so teachers can give pupils links to a specific exercise or resource hosted on a website?

 

If we use a website that isn't bright enough to realise we want to auto-provision accounts on their site as they appear in Active Directory, can your system flag up mismatched accounts?

 

If we are developing web applications ourselves, what would you recommend is the best authentication / SSO mechanism to support? I'm rather thinking allowing people to log in with their Google account via Google's OAuth mechanism is going to be the most widespread, but what do you reckon?

[russdev]

Ah, so something like the LastPass (or similar) plugin that remembers you password details for a particular site? How easy is this plugin to install around a typical school's system? How's about user's own / home devices? What platforms does it support - Windows, Linux, iOS, Android, ChromeOS?

 

 

 

So WebTop is rather like the Windows 8 Start Screen - a single (scrollable?) screen with nice big icons for people to click / touch that launch them straight in to their own account on a third party website? Is this embedable inside a VLE - the default homepage for all our in-school browsers is set to our VLE, so users see their account as soon as they start a web browser, could we embed a WebTop start screen in an iFrame and have users able to go to other websites straight from the start screen? Even better, does your plugin support going to a particular URL / location within a third-party website once logged in, so teachers can give pupils links to a specific exercise or resource hosted on a website?

 

If we use a website that isn't bright enough to realise we want to auto-provision accounts on their site as they appear in Active Directory, can your system flag up mismatched accounts?

 

If we are developing web applications ourselves, what would you recommend is the best authentication / SSO mechanism to support? I'm rather thinking allowing people to log in with their Google account via Google's OAuth mechanism is going to be the most widespread, but what do you reckon?

 

The plugins we have instructions to install via group policy but at home then can be installed manually via the appropriate browser eco system etc and YouID website prompts and helps you through it. The web top is more like a desktop in the cloud vrs Windows 8 metro style of interface.

 

As for links to certain page will depend a lot on the website its self and how it logins in. Over auto provision if it is a federate app then depending on the app it will auto proviso the users. However personal/customs app will currently not. If developing own app then we recommend shibboleth but in the future maybe a better way of doing but can't say anything otherwise @jonimpero will fire me

 

Russell

[Edu-IT]

So one immediate difference there between RM Unify and YouID is that RM Unify does not need any browser extensions to function. So this may / may not be important to schools. Just to consider.

[jon-senso]

So one immediate difference there between RM Unify and YouID is that RM Unify does not need any browser extensions to function. So this may / may not be important to schools. Just to consider.

 

True but the reason for our browser extension is to provide functionality that unify doesn't have, the ability to save personal app passwords.

It doesnt need extension for the sso to federated apps like o365 etc. This will work from anywhere without the extension.

Edited November 26, 2014 by jon-senso

[russdev]

So one immediate difference there between RM Unify and YouID is that RM Unify does not need any browser extensions to function. So this may / may not be important to schools. Just to consider.

 

Yes you are right but use browse so that in youid can add any website and do not need to contact us before hand. Also we have considered the non extension method but for various reasons we wouldn't let our customers have this method. We may do non browser for apps in future but only if ticked certain boxes.

 

Russ

Edited November 27, 2014 by russdev

[Edu-IT]

So if I have the browser plugin installed here, at school, and also on my computer at home. At school my computer has an App saved called Impero123. At home can I see Impero123 in my 'list' even if I didn't add it to that PC? Will it know the login details even if I haven't saved them to that PC?

[jon-senso]

@Edu-IT good example would be: youid will provision all your o365 accounts because its federated (links with AD). But facebook isnt, so you install the browser plugin, log into youid and use that to launch facebook, it will save your password encrypted in your AD so wherever you log into youid and have the extension installed to browser, it will seamlessly log you into facebook and all your other private apps. Thats just an example, it could be student educational cloud apps that are not federated. A lot of edu apps can be federated though and therefore created when you create an AD account.

Hope that helps.