boston university's approach to orcid adoption & integration

Christopher Shanahan MD MPH

Faculty Lead, Research Networking, BU CTSI

Best Practices: Promotion & Creation of ORCiDs for Faculty, Staff,

& Students: Outreach & Policy

ORCID  0000-0001-9067-5922

BU’s Approach to ORCID adoption and integration

Boston University Charles River Campus (CRC) Medical Campus (BUMC)

BU School of MedicineBU School of Public HealthGoldman School of Dental MedicineBoston Medical Center (BMC)

14 Boston HealthNet Community Health Centers (CHCs) and other affiliated clinical partners

Boston & Bedford VA Healthcare System

Key Stakeholders

Individuals representing University / Individual College LeadershipLibrariesInformation technologyHuman resources (HR)Research administrationGraduate education

ORCID Implementation TeamTeam employed existing BU Profiles Project Group Comprised of faculty & technology representatives

ORCID project successfully presented directly to the Provost Council (contained nearly all stakeholders) for sponsorship & policy decisions

Implementation team coordinated project with: University Library Alerted the University Provost of the our approach to start at the

medical campus

Constituent StakeholdersSelect deans at CRC & BUMC campusesProvosts at BUMC and CRC campuses

BUMC Associate Provost for Research BUMC Associate Provost for Graduate Affairs Other associate/assistant provosts

Communications (Corporate and school-level offices)

University Information Technology University General Counsel Libraries

Clinical Translational Sciences InstituteFaculty representation

Building ConsensusEngaged BUMC Provost Council

Able to make high-level decisions (e.g. opt-out for faculty; opt-in for others)

BU General Counsel reviewed ORCID policy & implementation plan Created the BU ORCID Acknowledge and Consent (including:

ORCID terms of use, privacy policy and record dispute procedures, privacy levels, what to expect, and how data might be used)

Project started at BUMC due to the relative ease of pushing PubMed publication data for

faculty & postdocs in BU Profiles University leadership informed of that approach

Policy Decision: Opt-in vs. Opt-out policy

Team advocated for an Opt out policyFull- and part-time BUMC faculty have the option to

opt-out of ORCID For BUMC faculty who did not opt out, ORCID records

were created & prepopulated from BU Profiles mid-September, 2013

Of 1616 eligible individuals, only 1 opt-out 55 staff/students had existing ORCiD

ResistanceLittle institutional or individual resistance Exception: Difficulty obtaining significant cooperation with the CRC undergraduate & Graduate Student Group groups.

Reasons: Insufficient interest given that only a small percentage

of undergraduates likely to go on to direct research professionally

Privacy Policies related to student statusCurrent Leadership Transition Re-approach after new leadership in place in July

2014

Getting Project Buy-inProject couched as “extension of an already approved project” (BU Profiles)Employed existing BU Profiles Group

ORCID presented directly to the Provost Council for policy decisions & green light to proceed Nearly all stakeholder are represented in group

Strategic & Open communications: Discussed project with University Library Alerted University Provost of approach to start at Medical Campus

Obtain input / secure buy-in, project presented to: University Provost for Research VP for Information Technology VP for Research Finance & Operations/Sponsored Programs University Associate Provost for Faculty Affairs

Achievements to Date Integrated ORCiDs for all Medical Campus Faculty into BU Profiles

ORCiDs established for pre- & postdoctoral students, fellows & trainees To assist with tracking for future training grant applications, etc.

Bet: Most individuals will keep their data public in ORCID Or continue to give BU access to "limited" records

(set at time ORCiD created)

Near-term ObjectivesExpand adoption across BUShift from a biomedical faculty focus to non-medical campus faculty, post-doctoral trainees, graduate students & undergraduates

Extend ORCID to BU Engineering SchoolA different approachPopulate BU Profiles with works, biographies & other

content from ORCID in addition to BU Profiles Disambiguation

Continue ORCiDs updates from BU Profiles to validate

Long-term ObjectivesCreate New ORCID iDs (records) according to institutional policy for:Faculty Graduate studentsOther post-baccalaureate trainees Select undergraduate students focused on research

Extend ORCID to Non-Science CACTo serve as potential model to approaching academic

disciplines across BU (e.g., Social Sciences, Arts, & Humanities)

Integrate/Store ORCiD within:BU HR system (SAP) BU Identity & Access Management (IAM)

Grad Student Record Creation Approach to Graduate Students at BUMC

Aligned objectives of the ORCID Integration project and the School of Graduate Medical Sciences (GMS)

GMS mandated to enhance Graduate TrackingNo delegate available for postdocs or undergraduate students Plan: make aware of ORCID Point students to an web-based application which

facilitates the creation and reporting of their ORCID (as an opt-in)

Overall approachTarget individuals at BU just prior to graduation

Communications StrategyAll communications regarding ORCID sent via the Provost’s office Increases likelihood email read & acted upon.

Informational Presentations to:FacultyGraduate StudentsFellows & Post-DocsMedical StudentsProvostsDeansGeneral Faculty MeetingsFaculty Development Conferences

Creating ORCiDs Initial Introduction to ORCID via Web site (Via Provost eMail)

Web pages “About ORCID” & “ORCID Acknowledgement & Consent”

Initial batch of ORCiDs created for all BUMC faculty API facilitates user authorized population of key data

elements in ORCID using existing BU Profiles data Individuals with existing BU Profile

Can populate or update ORCID with works (publications), websites, biography (narrative), employment & education

Mapping permits BU Profiles roles to inform default ORCID privacy levels (still modifiable)

Workflow HR On-boarding process used to identify new faculty for ORCID creation. Data from HR Data system permits creation of ORCID records through

the Profiles/ORCID API

Individuals without BU ProfileCan create an ORCID record through BU Profiles (faculty, staff, postdocs, trainees, students, etc.)

System facilitates bulk ORCID creation (by system administrator) based on selection criteria (school, department, division, person-type, etc.)

ORCiD publically displayed as hyperlink in BU Profiles

Individuals logged in to BU Profiles & editing their profile can create an ORCiD, if needed

Individuals can conduct basic (unidirectional) updates from BU Profiles to ORCID

Creating ORCiDs: Current StatusAPI tested & operationalBU currently not adding additional ORCID or updating existing ORCID Profiles.Rationale: Workflow constraints & absolute requirement to keep

process extremely simple, requiring little to no faculty intervention

Awaiting ORCID policy decision & functionality to permit delegates to send information via API

AdoptionFaculty response minimal but positive

Nearly entire population of Faculty on the BU Medical Campus from three schools1616 had ORCiD established for them using an opt-out mechanism

One (1) individual opt-out so far

Next stepsThe integration API currently undergoing QA tested (Recombinant / Harvard)

After testing completed API to be distributed to Profiles RNS user-base as core code update

Awaiting policy & workflow modifications from ORCID to permit & facilitate institutionally delegated ORCiD management

ORCID - BU Profiles Integration Team Project leader: Christopher Shanahan MD MPH

Faculty Lead, Research Networking, CTSI, BUSM cshanaha@bu.edu

Project Co-leader: Christopher Dorney Director, BUMC IT Application Services dorney@bu.edu

Technical contact: Peter Flynn II Senior Application Developer, BUMC IT Application Services; ORCID

technical lead pflynn@bu.edu

Marco Basta Senior Application Developer, BUMC IT Application Services bastam@bu.edu

Karim Kabbara Senior Application Developer, BUMC IT Application Services kkabbara@bu.edu

Jim Vlachos Application & Web Specialist, BUMC IT Application Services jvlachos@bu.edu