Advanced Search

E-Authentication

• Part I: Summary Information and Justification
  • Section A: Overview
  • Section B: Summary of Spending
  • Section C: Acquisition/Contract Strategy
  • Section D: Performance Information
  • Section E: Security and Privacy
  • Section F: Enterprise Architecture (EA)
• Part II: Planning, Acquisition And Performance Information
  • Section A: Alternatives Analysis
  • Section B: Risk Management
  • Section C: Cost and Schedule Performance

1. Date of submission: Sep 10, 2007
2. Agency: 018
3. Bureau: 24
4. Name of this Capital Asset: E-Authentication
5. Unique Project (Investment) Identifier: 018-24-01-06-01-0260-00
6. What kind of investment will this be in FY2010? Mixed Life Cycle
7. What was the first budget year this investment was submitted to OMB? FY2005
8. Provide a brief summary and justification for this investment, including a brief description of how this closes in part or in whole an identified agency performance gap: DoED OCIO, E-Authentication minimizes the burden on businesses, public and government users when obtaining services on-line by providing a secure user authentication infrastructure for web-based transactions, eliminating the need for separate processes for the verification of identity and electronic signatures. This initiative provides the capability of validating electronic identity credentials for a user when accessing a web-based government service/system. DoED customers come from a wide spectrum however the majority are from universities, colleges, lenders, servicers and agencies. The higher education community has been working towards federated identities, allowing the sharing of identity credentials across multiple applications across organizations. Since some of our main customers are the same higher education community members, it is feasible to participate in federated identity. In addition, other business partners and student/parent customers have requested that we accept other credentials. This initiative enables the E-Authentication functionality to perform federated authentication in which the Department's systems can begin to use electronic user identity credentials from external credential service providers (i.e. schools, financial institutions, etc.). The Department's FY06 OMB Budget Passback for E-Authentication requires the agency to implement E-Authentication. DoED has committed to this initiative by engaging in a federation agreement with the General Services Agency, managing partner of the E-Authentication initiative as well as a MOU for the G5 grants initiative. The G5 initiative builds on the DoED OCFO/OCIO e-Payments application implemented in 2006. The G5 initiative will enable shared services for grants management to be provided to other federal agencies. DoED FSA the eCampus Based (eCB) application has also implement e-Authentication and is the first FSA application to use the E-Authentication service in FY 2008. With eCB using the E-Authentication functionality, between 2,000 and 3,000 schools are benefitting from how eCB performs authentication. In FY2009, it is planned to implement e-Authentication with two more FSA applications and one application from OPE. FY2010 has six more applications scheduled for e-Authentication implementation.
9. Did the Agency's Executive/Investment Committee approve this request? yes
   1. If "yes," what was the date of this approval? Jun 14, 2007
10. Did the Project Manager review this Exhibit? yes
11. Contact information of Program/Project Manager?

1. What is the current FAC-P/PM (for civilian agencies) or DAWIA (for defense agencies) certification level of the program/project manager? Senior/Expert/DAWIA-Level 3
12. Has the agency developed and/or promoted cost effective, energy efficient and environmentally sustainable techniques or practices for this project. no
    1. Will this investment include electronic assets (including computers)? yes
    2. Is this investment for new construction or major retrofit of a Federal building or facility? (answer applicable to non-IT assets only) no
    1. If "yes," is an ESPC or UESC being used to help fund this investment? [Not answered]
    2. If "yes," will this investment meet sustainable design principles? [Not answered]
    3. If "yes," is it designed to be 30% more energy efficient than relevant code? [Not answered]
13. Does this investment directly support one of the PMA initiatives? yes
    Expanded E-Government
    1. Briefly and specifically describe for each selected how this asset directly supports the identified initiative(s)? The E-Authentication Initiative expands e-Government by providing users access to online services that require authentication, using a solution that is secure as well as convenient and easy for their customers to use, resulting in an improvement in the taxpayer experience. The above multiple choice click option does not work properly on the PDF but should include expanded eGovernment and possibly Eliminating Improper Payments.
14. Does this investment support a program assessed using the Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART)? (For more information about the PART, visit www.whitehouse.gov/omb/part.) no
    1. If "yes," does this investment address a weakness found during a PART review? [Not answered]
    2. If "yes," what is the name of the PARTed program? [Not answered]
    3. If "yes," what rating did the PART receive? [Not answered]
15. Is this investment for information technology? yes

For information technology investments only:

16. What is the level of the IT Project? (per CIO Council PM Guidance) Level 2
17. In addition to the answer in 11(a), what project management qualifications does the Project Manager have? (per CIO Council PM Guidance) (1) Project manager has been validated as qualified for this investment
18. Is this investment or any project(s) within this investment identified as "high risk" on the Q4-FY 2008 agency high risk report (per OMB Memorandum M-05-23)? yes
19. Is this a financial management system? no
    1. If "yes," does this investment address a FFMIA compliance area? [Not answered]
    1. If "yes," which compliance area: [Not answered]
    2. If "no," what does it address? [Not answered]
    2. If "yes," please identify the system name(s) and system acronym(s) as reported in the most recent financial systems inventory update required by Circular A-11 section 52 [Not answered]
20. What is the percentage breakout for the total FY2010 funding request for the following?

21. If this project produces information dissemination products for the public, are these products published to the Internet in conformance with OMB Memorandum 05-04 and included in your agency inventory, schedules and priorities? n/a
22. Contact information of individual responsible for privacy related questions:

23. Are the records produced by this investment appropriately scheduled with the National Archives and Records Administration's approval? yes
24. Does this investment directly support one of the GAO High Risk Areas? no

2. Will this project require the agency to hire additional FTE's? yes
   1. If "yes", How many and in what year? 1 FTE in FY2007. 1 FTE in FY2008. 1 FTE in FY2009.
3. If the summary of spending has changed from the FY2009 President's budget request, briefly explain those changes: [Not answered]

1. Is this investment included in your agency's target enterprise architecture? yes
   1. If "no," please explain why? [Not answered]
2. Is this investment included in the agency's EA Transition Strategy? yes
   1. If "yes," provide the investment name as identified in the Transition Strategy provided in the agency's most recent annual EA Assessment. E-Authentication
   2. If "no," please explain why? [Not answered]
3. Is this investment identified in a completed and approved segment architecture? yes
   1. If "yes," provide the six digit code corresponding to the agency segment architecture. The segment architecture codes are maintained by the agency Chief Architect. For detailed guidance regarding segment architecture codes, please refer to http://www.egov.gov/. 761-000

6. Will the application leverage existing components and/or applications across the Government (i.e., USA.Gov, Pay.Gov, etc)? yes
   1. If "yes," please describe. It will rely on the eGov E-Authentication portal which is accessed through this website: http://asc.gsa.gov/portal/template/welcome.vm

1. Did you conduct an alternatives analysis for this investment? yes
   1. If "yes," provide the date the analysis was completed? Apr 3, 2006
   2. If "no," what is the anticipated date this analysis will be completed? [Not answered]
   3. If no analysis is planned, please briefly explain why: [Not answered]

3. Which alternative was selected by the Agency's Executive/Investment Committee and why was it chosen? Developing Federated Identity Management is mandated by the e-Gov initiatives and is part of the Presidents Management Agenda (PMA). The Baseline Alternative (Status Quo) was not selected because it would place the agency in non-compliance with the PMA. Alternative 1 was not chosen because of the technology differences between FSA applications and non-FSA applications. FSA uses Shibboleth and non-FSA uses Tivoli. Converting one technology to the other would have been cost and time prohibitive. Alternative 2 was chosen because it minimized the number of different infrastructures that needed to be created. Thus, minimizing time, cost, and personnel. Alternate 3 was not chosen because it was not feasible with the technology differences between FSA and non-FSA. In addition, it was more costly to directly contract credentialing services instead of sharing costs with the e-Authentication Federation. Alternative 4 was also considered (not listed above), it had a significantly higher risk adjusted cost and was not selected because it was the costliest, most time consuming, and most personnel intensive.
4. What year will the investment breakeven? (Specifically, when the budgeted costs savings execced the cumulative costs.)
5. What specific qualitative benefits will be realized? DoED OCIO, The burden of identity management (enrollment, issuance, maintenence, help desk support) can be reduced. Also, the user experience will be improved along with realizing other customer benefits. FSA, The specific qualitative benefits are: 1. The Single Contract alternative significantly reduces the number of people who must master and maintain highly specialized skills. The E-Authentication team provides subject matter experts in E-Authentication products and technologies. 2. A Single Contract model requires only 15 resources, compared to a maximum of 125 resources that would be required to support E-Authentication products using a decentralized approach. 3. Aligning services and support under a Single Contract alternative reduces the time and effort by at least 20% to coordinate different activities including, upgrading the different products, integrating new applications etc in a centralized support structure, compared to the time and effort required to coordinate upgrades in multiple E-Authentication environments, supported by multiple contractors. 4. In a Single Contract alternative, major responsibilities are assigned to a single support contractor and not to multiple teams or contractors, resulting in streamlined problem resolution processes, accounting for a 25% reduction in the time and effort to resolve problems. 5. This alternative requires only 1.50 FTEs compared to 11.50 for other alternatives. This alternative provides the government with the easiest contract structure to administer and manage. In addition, aligning services and support under one contract enables the government to document, monitor, and provide consistent performance measurements/metrics using a single data repository. 6. This approach is currently being used and continues to be successful with respect to providing services, lowering the overall project costs by at least 50% compared to other possible alternatives.

6. Will the selected alternative replace a legacy system in-part or in-whole? no
   1. If "yes," are the migration costs associated with the migration to the selected alternative included in this investment, the legacy investment, or in a separate migration investment? [Not answered]
   2. If "yes," please provide the following information:

1. Does the investment have a Risk Management Plan? yes
   1. If "yes," what is the date of the plan? Sep 30, 2006
   2. Has the Risk Management Plan been significantly changed since last year's submission to OMB? no
   3. If "yes," describe any significant changes: [Not answered]
2. If there currently is no plan, will a plan be developed? [Not answered]
   1. If "yes," what is the planned completion date? [Not answered]
   2. If "no," what is the strategy for managing the risks? [Not answered]
3. Briefly describe how investment risks are reflected in the life cycle cost estimate and investment schedule: Risks are analyzed and impact assessments are documented and are reflected in the cost estimate accordingly.

1. Does the earned value management system meet the criteria in ANSI/EIA Standard - 748? yes
2. Is the CV% or SV% greater than ± 10%? (CV%= CV/EV x 100; SV%= SV/PV x 100) no
   1. If "yes," was it the? [Not answered]
   2. If "yes," explain the causes of the variance: [Not answered]
   3. If "yes," describe the corrective actions [Not answered]
3. Has the investment re-baselined during the past fiscal year? no
   1. If "yes," when was it approved by the agency head? [Not answered]

Return to OMB Exhibit 300 page