Northeastern State University Awards Identity and Access Management Services RFP to OculusIT

Northeastern State University (NSU) is a comprehensive regional university governed by the Regional University System of Oklahoma and coordinated along with 24 other Oklahoma public colleges and universities by the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education.

Founded in 1851 as the original Cherokee National Female Seminary, NSU is the oldest institution of higher learning in Oklahoma. It is the fourth-largest public four-year institution in the state and is one of six regional institutions governed by the Regional University System of Oklahoma board. The university serves a learning hub in northeastern Oklahoma formed by three campuses – the main campus in Tahlequah and branch campuses in Muskogee and Broken Arrow – which together serve nearly 9,000 students annually.

NSU rolled out an RFP in March 2021 for an identity and access management system to securely manage accounts and access for employees, students, vendors, and partners.

The university wants to partner with a vendor who can provide a fully automated system that moves the university from manually provisioning accounts by enabling users to request and approve access based on management and data ownership. The system must be easy to manage and supported by NSU personnel after a successful implementation with easy access to training and vendor support. The system will help manage users’ entire lifecycle, including but not limited to account creation, account provisioning and de-provisioning, password self-service, account support, and compliance.

After thorough assessment and evaluation, NSU awarded the RFP to OculusIT in August 2021 for five years.

OculusIT offers identity and access management system to securely manage accounts and access for employees and students vendors, and partners through this partnership. This  fully automated system removes IT from manually provisioning accounts by enabling users to request and approve access based on management and data ownership. The deliverables include:

• Implement a secure workflow of account and access provisioning and de-provisioning.
• Implement a secure automated account onboarding procedure for new students, contractors, partners, and employees. Partners include those with a short to long-term relationship with NSU, such as guest speakers, k-12 programs, or third parties that use NSU facilities.
• Implement a secure automated guest account procedure that allows NSU to set time restrictions through self-registration.
• Password self-service that includes secure reset verification and password expiration notification.
• Ensure logging of activity and the availability of reporting tools for compliance.
• Develop automated processes for name changes and preferred names to reduce errors and allow staff and students to utilize a preferred name outside the given name.
• Leverage single sign-on (SSO) and multi-factor authentication (MFA) for end-user authentication. Preference to those vendors that provide SSO and/or MFA through their solution. The University asks that pricing be included in the submitted response.
• Force annual acceptable use policy acceptance with verification and auditing.

OculusIT™ is a global, managed IT and cloud services company that, together with its technology partners, serves more than 600 colleges and universities. Headquartered in Chicago, OculusIT™ has a delivery network and operations across North America and globally. 

For further information, please visit www.oculusit.com