InCommon Federation FAQs

The InCommon Federation is a trusted identity and access management framework that connects U.S. higher education institutions, research organizations, and service providers. It enables secure, single sign-on (SSO) access to web-based resources across institutions using your university credentials. 

If you're a faculty member, student, or staff at a participating institution like Vanderbilt University, InCommon allows you to log in to many external academic and research services (e.g., NSF, NIH, library databases, collaboration tools) using your Vanderbilt NetID—no need to create separate accounts.

InCommon uses a technology called federated identity, where your home institution (the "identity provider") confirms who you are to another organization (the "service provider") without sharing your password. Your login experience stays consistent, and your information stays secure.

For a full list of InCommon Organizations please visit Community Organizations - InCommon.

Yes. InCommon uses industry standards for secure authentication and data exchange. Your credentials never leave your institution, and only necessary information is shared with external services.

Generally, no setup is needed. When you visit a participating service, simply select login with your institution credentials, then select Vanderbilt University (OneVU) from Institution list, and log in using your VUNetID and password used for OneVU powered by Okta.