PROVO, Utah - Feb. 18, 2003 — Novell is helping education customers reap the benefits of secure identity management by providing new integration with many education-specific applications as part of the company's Novell Nsure solutions. Already able to integrate user identities and access rights across a wide range of systems, Nsure solutions now feature support for the Schools Interoperability Framework (SIF), a group of standards that enable seamless data sharing between applications for K-12 schools.

Few organizations experience the complex administrative challenges of schools systems, where student access rights to network resources must be granted, revoked or modified several times each year. Novell Nsure secure identity management solutions automate those processes to both strengthen security and dramatically lower the time and cost of administration. Now, thanks to the DirXML Driver for SIF, a new component of Nsure, that integration can be extended beyond HR and email systems to student information databases, library automation software and other SIF-enabled applications.

Brownsburg Community Schools of Brownsburg, Ind., a beta tester of the new DirXML Driver, plans to implement an Nsure solution to help make the most of class time and save money by simplifying the process of creating student network accounts. "In the past, when a student's network access needed to be created or changed, we would have to make those changes across a dozen different systems, which was slow and expensive," said Laurie Collins, New Media Software Technician at Brownsburg Community Schools. "Now, a user is added once to our student information database, SASIxp, and then that user identity is shared across multiple systems, from our NetWare servers to Follett Library Systems. Not only will that automation save us lot of money, which is always in short supply in education, but students have the access and resources they need to get down to the business of learning right away - and you can't put a price on that."

For more information about the new DirXML Driver for Schools Interoperability Framework, go to www.novell.com/products/dirxml/drivers/sif/quicklook.html. To learn more about Novell Nsure secure identity management solutions, go to http://www.novell.com/nsure.

Press contacts:
Shawn Dickerson
Novell, Inc.
Phone: 801-861-2932
E-mail: sdickerson@novell.com