The Kalmar Union enables access to Nordic higher education institutions with one username

10.02.2009

CSC – IT Center for Science Ltd is integrating the Haka user authentication system of Finnish higher education institutions to the corresponding Nordic systems. This project stands unique in the world.

Web-based services requiring user authentication have become so common that the number of usernames and passwords that users need to memorize has become insurmountable. Hence, higher education institutions have developed systems that allow access to services outside the home university, such as e-Learning services, libraries, and administrative services, with only one username-password combination.

Since 2005 the Haka identity federation has operated under the principle of only one username-password combination for end users in the Finnish higher education institutions, and similar systems have been deployed in other countries as well. Haka has 250,000 users in Finland and 3.8 million logins were made in Haka during 2008.

”Research and teaching at Finnish higher education institutions is inevitably international, but previous networks of trust that enable cross-organizational user identification have covered only one country”, says Application Specialist Mikael Linden from CSC.

In February 2009 CSC has signed a contract with the other Nordic countries to link Finland’s Haka user authentication system to Danish WAYF, Norwegian Feide and Swedish SWAMID.

The project is called the Kalmar Union, and provides secure access for the researchers, teachers and students of Finnish universities to web-based services in other Nordic countries by using the username and password issued by their home university. The collaboration project was funded by NordForsk, an organ of the Nordic Council of Ministry with responsibility for research funding.

Additional information

Mikael Linden
Application Specialist
tel. 040 5074 100
email: mikael.linden at csc.fi

CSC

CSC is a non-profit limited company providing versatile IT services, support and resources for academia, research institutes, and companies. The company has core competences in modeling, computing and information services. CSC provides Finland's widest selection of scientific software and databases and Finland's most powerful supercomputers that researchers can use via the Funet network.