Single Sign On for students and teachers

One login for 1.6 million primary school students in the Netherlands to access their digital teaching materials. That is the goal of seven cooperating publishers within Stichting Basispoort. With a simple, uniform log-in procedure, Stichting Basispoort wanted to improve the accessibility of online teaching programmes. Therefore, we developed a Single Sign On solution that gives all teachers and pupils in primary education easy access to their personal digital teaching materials.
classroom kids

Client

Stichting Basispoort

Challenge

Improving the accessibility of online teaching programmes for primary education

Solution

Single Sign On

One log-in for 1,6 million users

Basispoort was first used at the start of the 2013-2014 academic year. The system is running smoothly at nearly 8,000 Dutch elementary schools and has around 1.6 million users. The portal gives both teachers and students online access to digital educational materials provided by all associated publishers. Every student or teacher can only access their own specific learning or teaching tools.

Basispoort mockup 1

Red Hat JBoss and Single Sign On

Using Red Hat’s JBoss technology, iO developed Single-Sign-On connections with four publishers and dozens of school systems and set up a centralised 'Identity Provider' or IDP. Dick Lans, Red Hat’s regional director, Benelux: “With the Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform, the Basispoort Foundation has access to a future-proof platform that offers all the flexibility they need.”

The architecture is exceptionally suited for heavy production loads and ties in with other aspects of the architecture, e.g. web services with the licensing offices that manage publisher licences for the schools.

"This uniform login procedure improves usability and reduces management tasks for schools. In short: a massive improvement all around."

Paul Gillijns

Paul Gillijns , Chairman, Stichting Basispoort

Advantage of SAML Single Sign On

iO used the open SAML standard for the implementation of Basispoort, which makes it easy to connect other publishers and school systems as well. This allows these organisations to join the 1.6 million daily logins that are possible with this platform.

This uniform login procedure for all digital educational material eliminates the need for a multitude of different login methods, improves usability, reduces preparation times and reduces management tasks for the schools.

basispoort mockup 2

Single Sign On in the cloud with Azure

In the summer of 2016, Basispoort decided to switch to Microsoft’s advanced cloud at Microsoft Azure after a renewed hosting selection with iO. iO's open Java and Red Hat technology on Azure may sound strange, but Microsoft is betting on Linux and cross-platform automation hosted on Azure. Azure has a Dutch data centre which is reassuring for the management and security of school and student data.

iO designed an optimal setup for Basispoort based on the best of the cloud. With small adjustments, the Single Sign-On platform was adapted for final scaling in the cloud: a lot of capacity in the morning during the week, when schools start their day and sign on en masse, and less costs in the summer, when the Netherlands is on holiday.

iO infrastructure and software architects linked Application Gateways to JBoss middleware, configured Content Delivery Networks and tested central Databases-as-a-Service. The result: Basispoort is established on Azure.

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