Overview
At least as conceptualized in directory services, a record may have many dozens of attributes associated with it. How do we make sense of all of that data?
EIDUT EID The University of Texas Electronic Identity (UT EID or EID) is the public records identifier for principals at the university. See our Concepts page for more information. Types
There are several EID Types currently in use. Each EID Type indicates what type of entity the EID refers to. These EID Types are:
| EID Type | First Character | Corresponding TEDTED The uTexas Enterprise Directory (TED) is the University’s enterprise directory. See uTexas Enterprise Directory (TED) in the service catalog for more information. Object Class |
|---|---|---|
| Person | Alpha | utexasEduPerson |
| Business | 2 | utexasEduBusiness |
| Department | 3 | utexasEduOrgUnit |
| Service | 4 | utexasEduApplication |
| Group | 5 | utexasEduGroup |
| Identity Only | 0 | utexasEduIdonly |
Identifiers
An identity is the collection of attributes associated with a particular person (or sometimes a non-person entity).
A special subset of those attributes are identifiers. Identifiers (ideally) uniquely identify an identity and an identity may have one or many identifiers. For example, you may have a Social Security Number (SSN), a Texas Driver’s License (TXDL) number, and a Passport Number.
The primary identifier at The University of Texas at Austin is the UT EIDUT EID The University of Texas Electronic Identity (UT EID or EID) is the public records identifier for principals at the university. See our Concepts page for more information.. Other possible identifiers include (but are not necessarily limited to):
| Attribute Name | Corresponding TED Attribute Name |
|---|---|
| Badge ID Number | utexasEduPersonBadgeIdNumber |
| Benefits ID | utPersonBID |
| eduPersonPrincipalName (ePPNePPN The eduPersonPrincipalName (ePPN) (format: <eid>@utexas.edu) is an attribute which is part of the eduPerson LDAP schema.) | eduPersonPrincipalName |
| ID Card Number | utexasEduPersonIsoNumber |
| University Issue Number (UIN) | utexasEduPersonUin |
Depending on the system from which you are obtaining your data, you may not have access to the above identifiers. You may also have access to additional identifiers. Please refer to the system documentation for details.
Attribute Groups
There are a large number of attributes which may be associated with an identity at the University. As with identifiers, which attributes you have access to will vary depending on the identity, the system from which you are obtaining the attributes, and your particular permissions.
We conceptually group these attributes into several broad categories, though how you group identifiers may vary from system to system. For example, the uTexas Enterprise Directory (TED) has different permissions sets than Austin Active Directory (Austin ADAD Active Directory (AD) is a directory service from Microsoft which implements Internet standard directory and naming protocols. See Austin Active Directory (Austin AD) in the service catalog for the University’s local implementation.). At a high level, those categories are:
| Group | Description |
|---|---|
| Identifiers | We’ve discussed these above. |
| Affiliations | An attribute which describes, at a high level, how an individual is related to the university. Identities may have zero or many affiliations. |
| Entitlements | An attribute which defines what an account is allowed or authorized to do. |
| Contact Information | These attributes may be sourced from multiple systems. These attributes include, but are not limited to: Campus Mail Code, Email Address, Home Address, Office Address, and Telephone Number. |
| Employee Attributes | These attributes will always be associated with current employees at UT Austin. They include, but are not limited to: Full-Time/Part-Time Switch, Job Class Category, Organization Unit Name, Position-Based Honor, and Title. |
| Restrictions | An attribute which describes what policies apply to the record with regard to the release of the information. |
| Student Attributes | These attributes will always be associated with current students at UT Austin. They include, but are not limited to: Classification, Course Number, Major, and Major Department. |
We provide more detail below regarding several of these groupings.
Affiliations
One subset of attributes related to the identity’s affiliationAffiliation An affiliation is an attribute which reflects, at a high level, how an individual is related to the university. At any point in time, an individual may have no defined relationship, one defined relationship, or many defined relationships with the university. For example, and individual may be a current student, a future faculty member, a former employee, or all three. with the University. An affiliation designates, at a high level, how an individual is related to the university.
An identity may have zero, one, or many affiliations. For example, and individual may be a current student, a future faculty member, a former employee, or all three.
Affiliations are owned by their respective areas at the University. For example, the Current Student affiliation is owned by the Office of the Registrar and the Current Staff affiliation is owned by Human Resources.
Affiliation Classes
As mentioned above, affiliations reflect how closely an identity is related to the University. At a high level, that closeness is categorized into what we call EID Classes.
There are three EID Classes: Member, Affiliate, and Guest.
An identity’s EID Class is determined by the “highest-ranking” affiliation. So, if an identity has both a Member-class affiliation and an Affiliate-class affiliation, then the Member-class affiliation will supersede.
The EID Class is captured in the utexasEduPersonEidClass attribute and will have a corresponding value of MEM, AFF, or GUE.
Entitlements
Entitlements define what an account is allowed or authorized to do.
An identity may have zero, one, or many entitlements.
As with affiliations, entitlements are owned by their respective areas at the University.
Restrictions
Individuals have the legal authority to restrict the release of certain pieces of information associated with their identity under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA) or the Texas Public Information Act (TPIA). These elections are reflected in the restriction attributes.
An identity may have zero, one, or many restrictions.
As with affiliations and entitlements, restrictions are owned by their respective areas at the University.
There are two types of restrictions: record restrictions and attribute restrictions.
- Record restrictions (
utexasEduPersonRecordRestrictin TED;UT-RECORD-RESTRICTin TOMTOM TED on the Mainframe (TOM) is a subset of the uTexas Enterprise Directory (TED) except on the UT Mainframe. It is a handful of files in an ADABAS database. It is populated by a uTexas Identity Manager (TIM) notifier and consumed exclusively by UT Mainframe applications.) restrict the release of the entire record. - Attribute restrictions (
utexasEduPersonAttrRestrictin TED;UT-ATTR-RESTRICTin TOM) restrict the release of a specific attribute.
Where the Data Comes From
It’s important to know that the uTexas Identity Manager (TIMTIM The uTexas Identity Manager (TIM) is the University’s identity manager. See uTexas Identity Manager (TIM) in the service catalog for more information.) plays two roles: identity management and attribute aggregation. Some of the foundational elements of an identity at UT Austin (the UT EID, the password) are sources solely from TIM. However, most of the data originates in external systems.
Some examples:
- Benefits information is sourced from UT System.
- Department information is sourced from the Department System .
- Employee data is sourced from Human Resources (HR).
- Extension studies information is sourced from Extended Education Ventures (EEV).
- ID Card information is sourced from the ID Center.
- Library patron information is sourced from UT Libraries.
- OnRamps student information is sourced from the OnRamps program.
- Student data is sourced from the Office of the Registrar.
- Summer Camper information comes from the Youth Protection Program (YPP).
- Supervisory organization information is sourced from Workday.
- and more.
Also noteworthy is that TIM does not retain most of this information for itself. Keeping that long-term is the responsibility of downstream directory services such as TED, the UT Directory, and Austin AD .
More Information
More information regarding the identity data available to you should be available in the documentation for the system from which you obtain identity data.
- For the uTexas Enterprise Directory (TED), see TED Directory Schema .
- For Mainframe secure modules, reference the associated PDA.
- For UT Web, reference the UT Web Developers Wiki .
- For the UT Directory, reference About the Directory .
