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Latest Blogs

September 20, 2024

Philosophy on Data and Analytics

The stories and quotes that follow offer a glimpse into the experiences that have shaped my approach, driving my dedication for data and analytics.
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Ai/ml
September 04, 2024

Unlocking Student Success: How the Ed-Fi Alliance and Unicon Simplify Data Management for Schools

How do you efficiently manage, integrate, and utilize data to support student success?
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August 06, 2024

Back to School Highlights: What We’ve Achieved and What’s Next for You

This past school year, we’ve observed significant national shifts in how institutions approach student success analytics.
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July 01, 2024

Talent Spotlight - Allan Johnson

Our Talent Spotlight showcases the people of Unicon. Meet Allan Johnson, a User Experience (UX) and Learning Design (LX) Architect.
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June 27, 2024

Staying Ahead in EdTech: Key Updates from the Learning Impact Conference

This year’s Learning Impact conference showcased the latest updates in the LTI standard, the new Edu-API rostering standard, and applications of AI.
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March 21, 2024

Talent Spotlight - Gary Gilbert

Our Talent Spotlight showcases the people of Unicon. Meet Gary Gilbert, a Software Architect at Unicon.
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February 01, 2024

Users May Lose Access to LMS Apps as Chrome Blocks Third Party Cookies

Ready for Chrome’s third party cookies block in 2024? Users may lose access to LMS apps. Learn about new specs to adhere to security measures of LTI.
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December 13, 2023

Talent Spotlight - Dawn Edmunds

Showcasing the people of Unicon through our Talent Spotlight - Dawn Edmunds. Hear Dawn's reflections on EdTech and AI and more here.
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December 05, 2023

Information Security Strategies: Protect Your Data

Safeguard your digital life with these information security strategies. Explore key practices, from encryption to vigilant behavior, to protect your data.
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September 25, 2023

Talent Spotlight - Gary Thompson

Our Talent Spotlight showcases the people of Unicon. Meet Gary Thompson, a User Experience (UX) and Learning Design (LX) Architect.
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August 03, 2023

Back to School Preparation with Unicon

Ensure back to school preparation with Unicon's 30 years of expertise: download the Back-to-School Checklist for a seamless transition.
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July 24, 2023

Unlocking the Potential of Outsourcing: The Power of Domain Expertise

Unlock the true potential of outsourcing by leveraging the power of domain expertise. Gain insights from an experienced EdTech market professional.
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June 27, 2023

Talent Spotlight - Cary Brown

Our Talent Spotlight showcases the people of Unicon. Meet Cary Brown, Principal Project Manager.
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June 26, 2023

1EdTech Highlights the Benefits of AI in Education

The 2023 Learning Impact conference by 1EdTech: The future and benefits of AI in education, fair AI access, improved learning experiences and data privacy.
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June 07, 2023

Navigating Combined Learning Tools Interoperability and OneRoster

Integrating Learning Tools Interoperability with Student Information Systems requires careful planning. Consider these tips for achieving interoperability.
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May 22, 2023

The Key Ingredients for Strategic Staffing Solutions

Unicon: Strategic staffing solutions for the EdTech industry. Filling expertise gaps, enhancing team potential, and accelerating time to market.
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April 20, 2023

Where is My Software Integration Strategy?

Higher education is getting a handle on fast-paced digital transformation. Where does interoperability fit into your software integration strategy?
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April 13, 2023

LTI Deep Linking, Rostering and Other FAQs: 1EdTech's Best Practices

The best practices for LTI tools: how to manage challenging use cases and implement the latest LTI deep linking specifications with Unicon's expertise.
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April 12, 2023

LLM Data Security: Information Security and AI

Learn more about the potential of Large Language Model (LLM) chatbots, LLM data security, and privacy concerns, and guidelines for responsible usage.
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April 03, 2023

Why Edtech Companies Should Be Watching Ed-Fi Developments

Adopting Ed-Fi standards is for K-12 school districts and across the EdTech companies Unicon serves.
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March 29, 2023

Talent Spotlight - Tasha Dannenbring

Showcasing the people of Unicon through our Talent Spotlight: Meet Tasha Dannenbring, Strategic Project Manager at Unicon.
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March 21, 2023

When Is the Right Time to Involve IT in a CBE Program Implementation?

In this blog from Unicon, we learn when is the right time to involve IT in a Competency-Based Education (CBE) Implementation program.
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March 02, 2023

Latest Enhancements: 1EdTech LTI Core, AGS and Deep Linking Standards

Explore changes to the LTI Core specification, Assignments & Grades Service (AGS), Deep Linking, and the Best Practices for LTI Assessment Tools guide.
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February 23, 2023

Tooling for Competency-Based Education: Competency Management Tools

Competency Management tools that provide a breadth of capability but often at the expense of depth of functionality.
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February 14, 2023

The K-12 Market: What LMS Strategy for Integrations Will Set Me Apart?

Learn what K-12 IT administrators seek in edtech products and how your LMS strategy can meet these needs.
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January 23, 2023

LTI for Groups, Grading, Privacy, Analytics, and More!

Learn about the progress made in the advancement of interoperability between educational tools and (LMSs) through 1EdTech’s (LTI) specification.
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January 11, 2023

Q3 2022 uPortal Open Source Support Briefing

Explore the 2022 uPortal Open Source Support Briefing's Steering Committee Update for discussions on community, development, and documentation.
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December 14, 2022

1EdTech Successes: Badges, Analytics and Virtual Reality in Education

Explore how 1EdTech leverages badges, analytics, and virtual reality in education to enhance the learner experience and drive student success.
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November 01, 2022

The Solution for Third-Party Cookies in LTI 1.3 Has Arrived

Discover how the latest LTI 1.3 updates solve cookie issues for smoother LMS integration.
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October 21, 2022

Summer Interns’ Perspectives: Teaching Modalities and Digital Learning

Dive into the perspectives of Unicon's summer interns’ for their insights on teaching modalities, LMS challenges, how modern education can evolve and more.
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August 22, 2022

Value of Project Managers: A Good One is Worth Their Weight in Gold

Discover the value of project managers: the key to assessing deliverables and planning based on customer commitments, deadlines, and resource availability.
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Applications and product development
August 10, 2022

Navigating the Product Development Lifecycle From Vision to Reality

Managing scope through the product development lifecycle is tough: it takes a strong project manager & product owner to stay on task.
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Identity and access management
July 18, 2022

The Modern Data Stack Components

The great thing about the modern data stack is it is still evolving and will probably continue to evolve indefinitely.
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Applications and product development
June 21, 2022

Q2 2022 uPortal Open Source Support Briefing

In this Open Source Support briefing: an overview of the Log4J and Spring security CVEs that recently hit the tech sector and more.
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Applications and product development
June 09, 2022

EDU-API: The Next Generation SIS API is Almost Ready for its Debut

Edu-API is invaluable in the education industry: it creates a pattern for integration between systems to make data available across the digital ecosystem.
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Applications and product development
May 20, 2022

Making Large Classes Feel Small: Faculty-Driven Learning Analytics

Hear Linda Feng's impressions of EDUCAUSE Connect: Student Success Analytics Practitioners Group webinar for learning analytics insights for large classes.
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April 27, 2022

Recap and Reflections from nSquared 2022

Reflections from nSquared 2022, a conference that brought together thought leaders interested in the technology integration changes facing Higher Education
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April 11, 2022

Easy First Steps for Ed-Fi Data Standard Adoption

The Educator Prep Data Model (EPDM) Starter Kit leverages the Ed-Fi Data Standard. Designed to give schools an easy first step to adopting the larger EPDM.
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April 11, 2022

Improve Your Education Customer Onboarding Experience

EdTech companies are striving to level up their customer onboarding experience. Learn strategies to create a seamless setup and long-term partnerships.
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March 21, 2022

Optimizing Your Data Architecture: What is a Data Warehouse?

What is a data warehouse? Every iteration of data architecture targets a specific segment of the organization to improve their relationship with data.
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February 16, 2022

New Articulations of Learning and the IMS Digital Credential Summit

The IMS Digital Credentials Summit joins top tier conferences on next generation learning articulation and the intersection of education and employment.
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February 01, 2022

Strategic Planning Education: What Does Your Organization Want To Be?

Strategic planning education: helping define product strategy, customer onboarding, comprehensive testing, security reviews and people/process changes.
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Applications and product development
January 27, 2022

Open Source Support Services: Flexible and There When You Need It!

Unicon’s Open Source Support Services provide expert help for CAS, Shibboleth, and more, ensuring quick issue resolution and smooth operation.
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Identity and access management
November 10, 2021

Partner Ecosystem Management: Strategies for Vendor Partnerships

Effective strategies for partner ecosystem management and tips for building strong vendor relationships to enhance your institution's technology delivery.
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November 01, 2021

Building Trust in Data: Data Governance Organization Structure

Hear from Software Architect Gary Gilbert on why ensuring you have a robust data governance organization structure has never been more important.
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October 25, 2021

EDUCAUSE 2021: Back Together Again

EDUCAUSE 2021: Explore a hybrid event with sessions on topics ranging from Cybersecurity and Privacy to Innovation and Emerging Technology.
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September 24, 2021

Highlights from IMS Tech Congress 2021

Learn about the IMS Tech Congress 2021, where updating the membership on many of its initiatives was at the forefront. Read on for more highlights!
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September 24, 2021

Reflections from ASU+GSV Summit 2021

Linda Feng, Principal Software Architect at Unicon, reflects on her experience the 2021 ASU+GSV Summit.
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September 23, 2021

Terracotta - An Innovative Experimental LMS Research Platform

Explore the advances made by Terracotta from Indiana University - An Innovative Experimental LMS Research Platform.
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Applications and product development
September 20, 2021

Back to School Insights: SEL and Post-Pandemic Learning Strategies

Explore valuable back to school insights on some of the changes our local school district and university have implemented.
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August 18, 2021

Algorithmic Discrimination and Avoiding Data Bias

AI is a way for algorithms to make decisions based on pattern detection and coded rules, which can lead to data bias. Here's what you need to know.
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Applications and product development
June 30, 2021

CAS Testing: Smoke Testing Distributed Ticket Registries

How do you check if Hazelcast ticket registry is working? CAS testing can confirm its functionality.
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Identity and access management
June 29, 2021

Onboard New LTI Apps with Ease: LTI® 1.3 Dynamic Registration

Learn about LTI Dynamic Registration Specification, an easier way to onboard new LTI apps.
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Applications and product development
April 27, 2021

eLearning Design for English as a Foreign Language (EFL) Learners

Read on for the importance of using eLearning design to mitigate challenges for EFL Learners when creating technical documentation or instructional text.
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Applications and product development
March 23, 2021

Support for IMS Standards First

Unicon signs the IMS Global’s Standards First pledge: committed to using IMS standards for the digital education ecosystem to improve learner experiences.
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Applications and product development
March 16, 2021

Unicon's Philosophy of Instructional Design

Four tenets in our instructional design: understand the student audience, use appropriate technology, remove obstacles to learning, and assess learners.
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Applications and product development
March 08, 2021

Migrate to InCommon MDQ Apereo CAS Server

InCommon is a widely used federation in Higher Education. Explore how the InCommon MDQ benefits applications like Apereo CAS.
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Identity and access management
March 03, 2021

LTI Integration: How to Improve Your Customer's Onboarding Experience

Unicon has put together a set of LTI Integration onboarding best practices which have shown to help reduce the burden of customer onboarding.
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Applications and product development
February 22, 2021

Education Technology Solutions: Find Your Way with LEARN Evaluations

Unicon offers education technology solutions like the LEARN evaluation methodology: a five-phase process to help our customers reach their destination.
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Applications and product development
January 26, 2021

Migrate to InCommon Metadata Distribution Query Shibboleth IdP

InCommon is a single sign-on federation in Higher Education, and it has recently created the InCommon Metadata Distribution Query service and protocol.
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Identity and access management
November 02, 2020

Q2 & Q3 2020 openEQUELLA Open Source Support Briefing

openEQUELLA is a flexible and mature content management solution. The openEQUELLA OSS Briefing shares Unicon's contributions on behalf of the OSS program.
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Applications and product development
October 06, 2020

Creating a Memorable Digital First Impression for Digital Learners

An evaluation of your digital learners' workflow from an application, integration, and data interaction perspective will allow you to be better informed.
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September 02, 2020

How Can Instructional Designers Support Faculty?

Instructional designers can take many steps when working with faculty to move a course online. First, help faculty members identify course objectives.
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Applications and product development
September 02, 2020

Why Upgrade to Shibboleth Identity Provider Version 4 in 2020?

There is a new major version of the Shibboleth Identity Provider (Shib IdP), 4.x series. Here are several reasons to upgrade to v4 before the end of 2020.
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Identity and access management
August 11, 2020

Grouper Evaluation: Automate & Secure Learner Access

A Grouper Implementation Assessment can provide an outline of what is already in place, what business processes drive status, and what changes are desired.
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Identity and access management
July 06, 2020

Amazon AppStream 2.0: Bringing Your Computer Lab to Your Students

A challenge many institutions faced was delivering software to students that was normally only available in a computer lab. Enter: Amazon AppStream 2.0.
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Cloud services
June 30, 2020

LTI Spotlight Series: LTI Tools and Best Practices

June, 2020 We are starting a new series called “LTI Spotlight,” where we find and showcase different examples of what people are doing with LTI tools.
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Applications and product development
May 21, 2020

Cloud Migration Strategy: Trust You're Ready, Then Perform a Migration

One thing to understand about migration plans is that they are not cookie-cutter plans. Read part 3 of this blog series here to learn more.
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Cloud services
May 14, 2020

Q4 2019 & Q1 2020 openEQUELLA Open Source Support Briefing

The periodic openEQUELLA Open Source Support (OSS) Briefing is an opportunity to share the contributions performed on behalf of the OSS program and more.
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Applications and product development
May 05, 2020

Reaching the Unreachable: What is the Digital Divide?

What is the digital divide? Patty Wolfe discusses how COVID-19 has pushed forward creative problem solving, expressing her gratitude for educational administrators.
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Applications and product development
April 27, 2020

Cloud Migration Strategy: The Cloud Migration Assessment Framework

Part 2 of the Cloud Migration Strategy. A Cloud Migration Assessment Framework helps you prepare for a successful migration into the Cloud. Here's how.
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Cloud services
March 27, 2020

Cloud Migration Strategy: The Timing is Always Right

Part 1 of the Cloud Migration Strategy. When should you step back and re-evaluate your efforts or think about developing a cloud strategy?
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Cloud services
February 17, 2020

A Guide to Evaluating Course Performance with the Kirkpatrick Model

Evaluating a course's effectiveness is crucial to enhance learning experiences. Use the Kirkpatrick Model to ensure course iterations lead to improvement.
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Applications and product development
February 06, 2020

Chrome Version 80 Cookie Security Updates Can Break LTI

To improve security and privacy across the web, Chrome version 80 updates its cookie security handling that may break LTI tool launches - read more here.
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Applications and product development
December 10, 2019

Q3 2019 openEQUELLA Open Source Support Briefing

The quarterly openEQUELLA Open Source Support (OSS) Briefing is an opportunity to share the contributions performed on behalf of the OSS program and more.
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Applications and product development
November 04, 2019

Agile in Real Life

Agile software development has been around for years and everyone wants in. Here are two real life perspectives on Agile project management.
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Applications and product development
May 07, 2019

Introducing Shibboleth Identity Provider UI

Shibboleth Identity Provider is a federated identity solution that provides SSO authentication within organizations and across organizational boundaries.
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Identity and access management
May 02, 2019

Q1 2019 openEQUELLA Open Source Support Briefing

The quarterly openEQUELLA Open Source Support (OSS) Briefing is an opportunity to share happenings in the community and much more.
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Applications and product development
April 22, 2019

ECS Cluster Scaling in EC2 (Part 2)

This is the second entry of the ECS Scaling blog that covers how to properly scale the EC2 cluster of instances that are running your ECS Tasks.
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Cloud services
April 17, 2019

Customizing uPortal (Part 4)

We covered how to write customizations for uPortal 5 using Decorator and Strategy patterns. Here's how to add custom classes to your uPortal-start repo.
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Applications and product development
April 10, 2019

Customizing uPortal (Part 3)

Strategy pattern encapsulates more than one implementation of some feature and makes these implementations interchangeable. Here's an example from uPortal.
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Applications and product development
April 03, 2019

Customizing uPortal (Part 2)

You can use design patterns to limit custom code changes in uPortal 5. In this post, we provide a real example of applying Decorator to uPortal5.
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Applications and product development
March 26, 2019

Customizing uPortal (Part 1)

Release 5.0 of uPortal brought major changes to tooling, deployment, and split the uPortal repo in two. These changes have a large impact on customization.
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Applications and product development
January 25, 2019

Choices for IAM Application Docker Images

This is the third post in a three part series on Docker Images, where John Gasper discusses the pros and cons of the various versions of the images.
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Identity and access management
January 18, 2019

TIER Docker Images

In this three-part series, we explore Docker images. Read part two here for information on Internet2 TIER program's Docker images.
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Identity and access management
January 11, 2019

Q4 2018 openEQUELLA Open Source Support Briefing

The quarterly openEQUELLA Open Source Support (OSS) Briefing is an opportunity to highlight Unicon's perspective on contributions and more.
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Applications and product development
November 09, 2018

Q3 2018 openEQUELLA Open Source Support Briefing

The quarterly openEQUELLA Open Source Support (OSS) Briefing is an opportunity to share the contributions performed on behalf of the OSS program, and more.
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Applications and product development
November 02, 2018

Apereo CAS High-Availability with Hazelcast and Kubernetes

When deploying a highly available CAS server, a chief concern is choosing technology capable of sharing CAS-generated tickets across multiple server nodes.
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Cloud services
October 05, 2018

CAS Server: Interrupt Me, Please!

Modern CAS (versions 5.2+) has an ability to interrupt authentication flow after primary authentication principal trust has been established.
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Identity and access management
August 31, 2018

midPoint SSO Integration with SAML2 Identity Providers

midPoint is a comprehensive Identity Governance and Administration (IGA) platform. Explore the midPoint SSO integration with SAML2 IdPs.
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Identity and access management
August 30, 2018

Q2 2018 uPortal Open Source Support Briefing

The quarterly uPortal Open Source Support (OSS) Briefing is a great opportunity to share contributions and happenings in the community. Read about it here.
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Applications and product development
August 14, 2018

Continuous Delivery of Grouper using Jenkins and Docker

Unicon helped Colorado School of Mines setup a continuous integration/continuous delivery pipeline to modernize future application deployment processes.
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Cloud services
August 09, 2018

Q2 2018 openEQUELLA Open Source Support Briefing

The quarterly openEQUELLA Open Source Support (OSS) Briefing is an opportunity to share the contributions performed on behalf of the OSS program and more!
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Applications and product development
May 15, 2018

Q1 2018 uPortal Open Source Support Briefing

The quarterly uPortal Open Source Support (OSS) Briefing is an opportunity to highlight Unicon's perspective on contributions and much more!
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Applications and product development
May 09, 2018

Q1 2018 EQUELLA Open Source Support Briefing

The quarterly openEQUELLA Open Source Support (OSS) Briefing is an opportunity to share opportunities to engage further with Unicon and much more.
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Applications and product development
February 15, 2018

Microservices with Spring Boot

February, 2018 - The term "microservices" appears in many technology journals these days. This blog addresses common questions including: "What are microservices, and more importantly, how are they a better solution than what's already out there? Also, if microservices are so great, how easy is it to develop microservices?" Microservices are stand-alone applications that break down functionality into fine-grained components that run and restart independently.
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Cloud services
February 02, 2018

Q4 2017 EQUELLA Open Source Support Briefing

The quarterly EQUELLA Open Source Support (OSS) Briefing is an opportunity to share the contributions performed on behalf of the OSS program and much more.
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Applications and product development
February 01, 2018

Q4 2017 uPortal Open Source Support Briefing

The quarterly uPortal Open Source Support Briefing is an opportunity to highlight Unicon's perspective on contributions and share community happenings.
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Applications and product development
January 05, 2018

Q3 2017 EQUELLA Open Source Support Briefing

The Unicon EQUELLA team completed the very first Open Source Support (OSS) Periodic Briefing on October 26, 2017. Here are the details.
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Applications and product development
December 21, 2017

Q3 2017 uPortal Open Source Support Briefing

The quarterly uPortal Open Source Support (OSS) Briefing is a fantastic opporunity to share new happenings in the community and more! Read about it here.
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Applications and product development
June 30, 2017

Identity and Access Management Semi-Annual OSS Briefing

The IAM team completed the first of two Open Source Support Briefings for 2017. The technical presentation offers recommendations and best practices.
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Identity and access management
June 02, 2017

AWS ECS Auto Scaling (Part 1)

Hear from Cloud Architect David Mendez about the common task he runs into with clients: setting up the scaling policies for an ECS Cluster.
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Cloud services
February 24, 2017

uPortal Tech Keeps Up with the Times

Hear from Senior Software Developer Benito Gonzalez about how uPortal stays modern.
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Applications and product development
December 19, 2016

Unicon IAM Update/Briefing - September 15, 2016

Unicon’s IAM team had their a quarterly Open Source Support briefing. Check out the details here.
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Identity and access management
November 01, 2016

You joined the InCommon Federation, now what?

You've paid your InCommon membership, uploaded your IdP metadata in the InCommon Federation Manager and your federation admins have been vetted. Now what?
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Identity and access management
November 05, 2015

Successfully Integrating a SAML Service Provider

A common task when running a SAML Identity Provider (IdP) is integrating additional SAML service providers (SP). This task is not a trivial one.
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Identity and access management
February 02, 2015

LDAP TLS/SSL Config for the Shibboleth IdP Explained

Configuring the Shibboleth IdP (or CAS Server 4.1+)'s LDAP connection to use TLS is easier than you think. Read on to find out how.
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Identity and access management

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