In the 2^nd presentation of the Learning Counsel’s Speed Rounds at the 2021 National Gathering, Carter Dunbar, Director of Product Marketing and Alliances at Identity Automation. These Speed Round presentations are short, succinct, yet important looks at products your school or district needs to know about. According to Cater Dunbar, “Traditionally, we have looked at identities as being accounts and really we need to sync accounts to provide access. That's what it has been. But what COVID has really forced upon us is, we have digital identities that are complementary to our physical identities and our physical selves. And they are right there with the onboarding process for new students, as well as employees and even parents. From an enrollment perspective, when a new student comes into a district, when they join a school, they have an immediate need to access any devices, course materials, email accounts, web logs, anything that has a username and or password, but anything with any kind of digital content that is relevant to them getting into education, they need that the moment they walk in the door. Otherwise, they're losing seat time and they're losing the ability to have an equitable education.

“So one of the other issues that they run into is the wait time. Processes don't happen together and they're not immediately available, whether this is the enrollment process, getting them entered into the student information system, getting them rostered into applications, getting them in the nutrition system, the bus system, anything that they need to be in. If they don't have the access they need, they're forced to wait because of processes not aligning together. So from an equity perspective, the disruption delay of that access prevents a student from getting an equitable learning experience.

“When I was a teacher, there was a lot of just sharing passwords so that kids could get in to access what they needed. From a security standpoint, that is absolutely horrible and dangerous, but it's what you needed to do to accomplish the objective of getting the kid access to their learning materials. One of the things that a lot of districts have to take on is manual processes to make sure that every student gets what they need. Any type of manual intervention, any type of ad hoc process is difficult to deliver in a secure manner to get that immediate access that is required.

“At identity automation, we have a platform called Rapid Identity, a security tool that is meant to be a frictionless experience for your teachers, your students, your staff, and for your parents. So as soon as a student is enrolled, they get access to every single program that's associated with the courses that they have with their demographic information. They are put into the devices they need, they have access to email. All of that happens on day one so that there is no interruption of learning. It's the equivalent of you handing them a pencil and a sheet of paper they're ready to learn right on day one. From an equity respect, the students are able to join the class with equitable access to everything that they need, regardless of any type of demographic information about them; they have what they need from a personalization standpoint.

“There are long term ramifications around using the identity to personalize instruction. But being able to personalize and individualize the pathways for how they access the materials they need is also important. An 18 year-old AP student does not need to have the same login process as a second grader. Based on who the individual is, based on what they're accessing, there should be things that are more secure, early lockdown and things that are easier to just pass on and be through. So, with little kids using things like a pictograph or a QR code on a badge, to be able to get them accessed is really important. With Rapid Identity, you automate your ecosystem to make sure that everything works in a secure manner so that it's there when it needs to be there for how long it needs to be there.”

Identity Automation strikes a balance between security and user experience with a frictionless, appropriate experience for the individual user – identity provisioning, authentication, rostering and ID governance. Keeping your data safe – and one less thing to worry about for your school or district.