Enhancing Cross-Institutional Compliance Training and Course Material Sharing

1. Cross-Institutional Authentication Cross-Institutional Authentication and Sharing of On-Line Course Materials Bill Gordon Academic Information Technology & Libraries University of Cincinnati Medical Center April 9, 2003

2. With Thanks To • UC IAIMS team (IAIMS is the Integrated Advanced Information Management Systems project of the National Library of Medicine) • AAMC Group on Information Resources (AAMC-GIR) • University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UTHSCSA)

3. Project Overview (1) • Develop Compliance Training and Tracking system for UC • Provide training customized for other institutions (AAMC-GIR) • Conduct peer review evaluation of customized training and delivery system (GIR and UTHSCSA)

4. Project Overview (2) • Cooperate with affiliated institutions to share cost of developing training materials • Provide training to people from outside institutions, via UC web site, on honor system • Provide training via log ins from external sites, as a test system for Shibboleth • Reference: www.ecourses.uc.edu

5. The Institutional Problem (1) • Funding agencies and OSHA require Compliance Training, including • Blood Borne Pathogens training • HIPAA Privacy and Policies training • Animal Research Regulatory training • Unfunded mandate • Expensive to provide

6. The Institutional Problem (2) • Each university must • Identify people requiring training • Maintain historic records of training completed • Ensure that all people requiring training are in compliance with their training requirements • Otherwise, the university may be fined or prohibited from conducting federally funded research.

7. The eCourses Solution • Training requirements assigned to people • Groups assigned training automatically, based on business rules • Administrative management of individual training requirements • Deliver on-line training on demand • Track compliance with training requirements • Alert people to current, unfulfilled training requirements

8. eCourses – Additional Features • Content agnostic • Any web-hosted course can be included • Minimal requirements for tracking course completion • Access to courses can be restricted based on authorization • Reporting of completion based on institutional, departmental affiliation

9. Underlying Architecture • Integrated Database • Identity Management System • Subschemas for application data, e.g. • eCourses • IRB System (Human Subjects research) • Media Repository • Web based front ends for applications

10. Integrated Database Model

11. Results of Architecture • Role and position information available to all applications • Applications can share information as business rules require • IRB Office can check for compliance with training requirements during application submission process • Training requirements can be automatically assigned based on role and position, or • Managed by immediate supervisor

12. Sharing the Work – UC Med Center • Affiliated institutions cooperate in development of training materials, esp. HIPAA • Training can be “branded” by institution • Data for employees of affiliated institutions loaded into database • Reports of training compliance provided to departments at affiliated institutions

13. Access (from UC) to Training • Log on to UC web site via institutional affiliation, username, and password • Can self-register if not included in database – on honor system • Select type of training, e.g. HIPAA • Training delivered based on institutional affiliation and role-based access rights

14. Limitations of This Approach • Must connect through UC site, rather than from home institution • eCourses cannot verify identity of persons self registering • Cannot guarantee delivery of correctly customized training • Cannot validate authorization for access to restricted training

15. AAMC-GIR Pilot Project • Motivation: Share cost of developing, delivering HIPAA training among institutions • Purpose: Demonstrate that central site can effectively provide compliance training and tracking to multiple institutions • Purpose: Develop criteria for evaluating on-line compliance training • Research by Aggie Manwell, graduate student at UTHSCSA, using data from GIR pilot study

16. Results To Date • UC users: Since July, 2001, more that 3000 people have taken Blood Borne Pathogens training via eCourses • GIR Pilot: 97 users from GIR member institutions used and rated eCourses • Evaluative Criteria Study (UTHSCSA): 77 users used MERLOT criteria to evaluate Blood Borne Pathogens course

17. Goal: Externally Provided Training • Agreement with outside institutions for UC to provide and track training • Customize existing training for outside institutions • Log on at external sites, with redirection to UC eCourses site or specific course - or - • Log on directly to UC eCourses site with validated institutional information

18. eCourses Requirements • Each person taking training must have a “person” record in the database, to track compliance and report results • Authorization is required to access certain resources and course materials • Reports to cooperating institutions include personal identification data

19. Issues to Resolve • Personal Identification vs. Privacy • Remote authorization for use of resources Not an Issue • Managing persistent identifiers is not an issue, because eCourses requires person records to track compliance training

20. A Possible Approach • User logs on to non-UC site (origin) • On connection to eCourses, origin sends identification handle to UC • UC requests additional information from origin as needed to create new person record • UC requests additional authorization tokens from origin as needed for access to selected resource

21. Personal Identification vs. Privacy • Origin institutions and UC agree on attributes used to create the eCourses person record. • Origin institution must be able to identify its citizens uniquely by their handles; a person’s handle must not change over repeated connections to eCourses • If a person logs in from multiple origins, “gluing” of the corresponding records will be at that person’s discretion

22. Remote Authorization • Access to courses can be based on position (faculty, student, clinical staff), role (financial officer, researcher), or work environment (in contact with patients or specimens) • UC can use authorization tokens provided by origin to control access to resources

23. Implementation Challenges • Determine set of personal attributes that can be used by eCourses without compromising privacy rights • Develop restricted vocabulary specifying many of the position / role/ environmental factors controlling access to resources • Modify eCourses as needed to integrate properly with Shibboleth

24. Timeline (1) • Develop eCourses – July, 2001 • GIR pilot project to test external access to eCourses – Jan, 2003 • UTHSCSA evaluation of BBP Course – Jan & Feb, 2003 • Sharing of content development at UC Medical Center – April, 2003

25. Timeline (2) • Installation of Shibboleth software at UC – August, 2003 • Using eCourses to provide compliance training (BBP and / or HIPAA) for a cooperating institution – Summer, 2004

26. Bill Fant Jack Kues Ralph Brueggemann Lou Ann Emerson Gil Hageman Dorothy Air Judy Jarrell John Littlefield Aggie Manwell Jerry York Roger Guard Stephen Marine Leslie Schick Acknowledgements • Josette Riep • Robert Kraft • Sandra Sanders • Bruce Merz • Delores Mincarelli • Li Huang • Madhavi Nallari • Savio Reddimasu • Richard Schauseil • Anshul Sharma • The UC Medical Center Colleges of Allied Health, Medicine, Nursing, and Pharmacy • AIT&L