Christopher Shanahan MD MPH Faculty Lead, Research Networking, BU CTSI ORCID 0000-0001-9067-5922 BU’s Approach to ORCID adoption and integration

1. Christopher Shanahan MD MPH
Faculty Lead, Research Networking, BU CTSI
ORCID 0000-0001-9067-5922
BU’s Approach to ORCID
adoption and integration

2. Boston University
Charles River Campus (CRC)
Medical Campus (BUMC)
BU School of Medicine
BU School of Public Health
Goldman School of Dental Medicine
Boston Medical Center (BMC)
14 Boston HealthNet Community Health
Centers (CHCs) and other affiliated
clinical partners
Boston & Bedford VA Healthcare System

3. Key Stakeholders
Individuals representing
University / Individual College Leadership
Libraries
Information technology
Human resources (HR)
Research administration
Graduate education

4. ORCID Implementation Team
Team 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

5. Constituent Stakeholders
Select deans at CRC & BUMC campuses
Provosts 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 Institute
Faculty representation

6. Building Consensus
Engaged 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

7. Policy Decision:
Opt-in vs. Opt-out policy
Team advocated for an Opt out policy
Full- 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

8. Resistance
Little 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 status
Current Leadership Transition
Re-approach after new leadership in place in July
2014

9. Getting Project Buy-in
Project 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

10. 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)

11. Near-term Objectives
Expand adoption across BU
Shift from a biomedical faculty focus to non-
medical campus faculty, post-doctoral trainees,
graduate students & undergraduates
Extend ORCID to BU Engineering
School
A different approach
Populate BU Profiles with works, biographies & other
content from ORCID in addition to BU Profiles
Disambiguation
Continue ORCiDs updates from BU Profiles to validate

12. Long-term Objectives
Create New ORCID iDs (records) according to
institutional policy for:
Faculty
Graduate students
Other post-baccalaureate trainees
Select undergraduate students focused on research
Extend ORCID to Non-Science CAC
To 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)

13. 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 Tracking
No 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 approach
Target individuals at BU just prior to graduation

14. Communications Strategy
All communications regarding ORCID sent
via the Provost’s office
Increases likelihood email read & acted upon.
Informational Presentations to:
Faculty
Graduate Students
Fellows & Post-Docs
Medical Students
Provosts
Deans
General Faculty Meetings
Faculty Development Conferences

15. 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

16. Individuals without BU Profile
Can 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

17. Creating ORCiDs: Current Status
API tested & operational
BU 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

18. Adoption
Faculty response minimal but positive
Nearly entire population of Faculty on the
BU Medical Campus from three schools
1616 had ORCiD established for them using
an opt-out mechanism
One (1) individual opt-out so far

23. Next steps
The 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

24. 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