OpenCCC Federated Identity Initiative

Owned by Patricia Donohue
Last updated: Jun 07, 2023
2 min read

OpenCCC is the California Community Colleges federated identity initiative.  OpenCCC operates within the InCommon Federation along with CSUConnect (California State University), UCTrust (University of California), institutions, government entities, and companies across the US.

OpenCCC includes a systemwide student account creation and recovery process, as well as a federated identity solution - allowing students to access Web-based technology applications across the System via one common, single sign-on account.

OpenCCC Student Account

As part of the OpenCCC student account process, every student is assigned a unique, systemwide identifier called the CCCID, which is initially passed to the colleges from the CCCApply submitted application data.

CCCIDs can also be created and passed to the college via the CCC SSO IdP proxy - facilitating secure single sign-on for previously enrolled college students. Colleges can use the CCCID to eliminate duplicate records and along with the CCC Chancellor's Office, can use the CCCID to tie “swirling” student’s data together. 

CCCID

When an OpenCCC account is created by a user, a unique identifier is created called the CCCID and stores the user's personal identification data in an Identity Center. The CCCID is the master link between the Identity Center, admission applications,  and other systemwide technology services. 

When users are authenticated to use a systemwide service or application, the CCCID will be passed to the service to identify the unique individual. In this way services and applications can maintain personal accounts for the user anonymously, thus ensuring privacy for the user.

Read more about the CCCID: The Use and Significance of the CCCID

 

MIS Data Integration

The CCCID can also be used to pass unique individual identity information between the college's MIS system and the Chancellor's office for reporting purposes.

For more information student identity protection, see Tech>nology: ID Security For Systemwide Apps (by Tim Calhoon, former Director, CCC Technology Center,Tuesday, 19 October 2010).