Author: lesliedare@gmail.com

A recent post to the EDUCAUSE blog nicely sums up the challenges of being a participant (citizen?) in the Web 2.0 world. Trying to navigate through a variety of tools and the resulting multiple identities can be a hindrance to really exploring all that Web 2.0 has to offer. And to compound it, some of those identities are personal and some are professional…and some are a blend which blurs it all even more. Lines that I had firmly drawn years ago to separate those worlds now seem to have shifted, which causes me to ponder just how transparent I want my life to be.

But back to the more technical challenges. A micro-level example of the problem of multiple profiles/identities is on our own campus. One of the most common questions I hear is “When will I be able to have just one login?” I think that the powers that be are very aware of this issue, and it is being addressed as part of an Identity Management initiative (I’ll add a link to that soon as I can find it).

A response to that post has led me to read more about OpenID, a phrase I’ve seen but only now am appreciating as a concept. Simply put, “OpenID means the elimination of multiple user names and passwords and a smoother, more secure, online experience.”

The notion of solving this at the macro-level is exciting, and I look forward to watching its development.