Provide support for ORCIDs

Goals

• Ensure records are able to utilise ORCIDs as an identifier
• Integrate with APIs to enrich ORCID profiles with information about research activities

Background and strategic fit

One of the key features of ReDBox and Mint is its handling of linked data to produce rich collection records for publication to Research Data Australia. The most common method currently used for identifying party records is to use an NLA party identifier, however the process of curating a party record is cumbersome and there are issues with the profile pages in Trove that the identifiers resolve to. ORCID is a new identifier that is gathering traction in the research community and there is a consortium that many Australian institutions are involved in, working towards a model of use locally. Use of ORCIDs as party identifiers within ReDBox and Mint is already possible but potentially ReDBox should also be involved in enriching the ORCID profiles with information about research activities.

Assumptions

• ORCIDs will be captured by institutions in their research management system or similar (e.g. Research Master or University Office)

Requirements

User interaction and design

User Story: The user shall reference an institutional party record using it's ORCID

 ReDBox and Mint should already support the use of ORCID as a reference identifier the process is to:

1. Include the party's ORCID in the Mint harvest feed
2. Configure the harvest to recognise that the parties are already curated and to use the ORCID value

To aid user's to transition using ORCIDs, documentation will be provided to outline the necessary changes to the configuration to facility the use of ORCIDs for institutional parties

User Story: The user shall reference an external party record using it's ORCID

Currently external parties can only be added by using the NLA Lookup in the user interface. Work in the RIF-CS 1.6 upgrade will include adding an editable identifier field to the form so that any identifier can be added manually. To aid the accurate input of ORCIDs, a lookup feature will be added to the interface that will utilise the ORCID search API

User Story: The user publishes a record and referenced parties' ORCID profiles are updated with works information

The ORCID API provides the ability to update ORCID profiles with additional information. One of the supported types of work that is supported are "data-sets" and it would be ideal if ReDBox could publish this information on the researchers behalf. However to be able to utilise this API call requires:

1. A Member API account for the institution
2. Authorisation by the party itself

As the data collection form within ReDBox is generally used by Librarians and other Managers on behalf of the party, gaining authorisation by the party is not a straightforward as it may be in other systems where the party is inputting the data themselves. A possible workaround may be to:

1. On publication of the data collection send an email to any parties that have been referenced in the collection
2. The email will let them know a collection that they're referenced in has been published and that they can have it included on their ORCID profile. To get their profile updated, the email will contain a link to a landing page within ReDBox where the user can authenticate with ORCID and allow permission for ReDBox to update their profile.
3. Once permission is received, ReDBox will send the data collection information to the profile.

As an alternative, it's highly likely that institutions will have other systems that would ideally publish information to ORCID (such as publications). A tool such as the Curation Manager that has a REST API could be used to externalise the update and allow for a single point of authorisation for multiple systems.

Questions

Below is a list of questions to be addressed as a result of this requirements document:

Not Doing