About Data Coordinating Center Infrastructure

College of Medicine Research Information Technology can provide identity and access management for software projects and consult on electronic data collection for multi-site studies. Centrally managed solutions for access management can incorporate existing user directories (like LDAP or Active Directory) while utilizing standard protocols like OpenID Connect, OAuth 2.0 and SAML 2.0.

OAuth-login

On projects using OAuth, researchers on the project from any institution can sign in with their own email address, instead of signing up for guest accounts.

Purpose

Control access to data

Configure data collection and storage to limit access by institution

Collaborate across institutions

Authenticate researchers from other institutions using their own authentication providers

Expand access within Ohio State

Research personnel not in the medical center can connect to research projects using their name.#

RIT's approach

Separate data in REDCap

Collaborators from multiple institutions can work together on the same REDCap project using The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center's REDCap Gray instance, so that researchers from outside the medical center won't need guest accounts. Experts in RIT can configure REDCap projects so that each researcher can only access the data they're permitted to see.

Leverage multiple authentications for controlled collaboration

Using a service called KeyCloak, RIT can configure a project to be accessed through multiple institutions' authentications. Personnel at other institutions, including Ohio State researchers not affiliated with the medical center, can then access research interfaces without requesting Ohio State Wexner Medical Center guest accounts.