InAcademia uses eduGAIN as the basis of its identity authentication process. There are a number of technical terms used within InAcademia to describe the process and the key stakeholders of the authentication system. These include:
Affiliated: An affiliation type asserting that at least one other affiliation type applies to the user.
Affiliation types: One of the following values: affiliated, employee, faculty, student
Employee: An affiliation type describing an individual who works part-time or full-time under a contract of employment at the Institution, and has recognized rights and duties
Faculty: An affiliation type describing an employee of an Institution who has specific duties around learning, teaching and/or research
Institution: An institution is an organisation which fulfills at least one of the following criteria:
- the organization is dedicated to education and research and grants academic degrees according to ISCED 2011 [ISCED] or equivalent internationally recognized degree levels.
- the organization is a research library or archive
- the organization is primarily dedicated to conducting research
- the organization is a teaching hospital
- any organization explicitly denoted as an education and research institution by a government entity in the jurisdiction where the claim of being a education and research institution is made
- the funding mechanism (private, public or mixed) is not a factor in the definition. For instance, privately funded research institutions may be included if they fulfill at least one of the criteria above.
Merchant: An e-commerce organisation that provides his customers (user) access to InAcademia.
Student: An affiliation type describing a person who is enrolled at or attends classes at an institution.
User: Persons who use InAcademia to prove their affiliation type towards a third-party.