Bulk import of users

We are thinking of using Omeka for education with large classes. We would like to set up 100+ usernames for the students to log in as small groups. We would prefer not to add these 100+ groups by hand. I haven't seen a way to do this.
Would there be a way to import a .csv file directly into the MySql database to populate the usernames? Is there any other way? I suspect that if something can be done once by hand through a web interface there might be generic software to automate it.

Are you using Single Sign-On, or will you need to trigger emails to users that are added?

We would like to use Single Sign-On but will need to make the case internally to get developer time to interface with our user database. I would like to be able to give a course code and instance and have those usernames populate Omeka.