Author improvements

[fbacall]

Summary of changes

• Migrated authors and contributors for Material, Workflow and LearningPath from string arrays to a has_many relationship with a new generic Person model containing full_name, and orcid fields
• Created a reusable HasPeople concern with a has_person_role macro for DRY code that can be applied to any model and role
• Added database migrations to migrate existing author/contributor data.
• Updated Bioschemas generator to include ORCID identifiers for authors/contributors.
• Added custom setters for backwards compatibility with legacy API clients (accepts either Person objects or strings)
• Added optional link between Person and TeSS Profile, with automatic linking based on matching ORCID.

Still to do

• Migrate Workflow and LearningPath contributors and authors
• Autocomplete for "people" form, looking up ORCIDs from profiles.
• Prevent Person objects being needlessly destroyed/recreated when a scraper "updates" a resource.
• Query ORCID API for accurate full_name (and first/last name?).

Motivation and context

The string arrays were limiting metadata quality and prevented linking to external author identifiers. Directly linking to authors/contributors to their ORCID/TeSS Profile opens up opportunities for better credit/recognition for people working in the training ecosystem. Additionally makes it easier to link other "roles" to resources in the future, e.g. instructors for events, maintainers for learning paths etc.

• add instructor and contributor field to TeSS events #993
• Extend author data model with ORCID and ROR for affiliation #1116
• Introducing Maintainers for Learning Paths #1170

Screenshots

Checklist

• I have read and followed the CONTRIBUTING guide.
• I confirm that I have the authority necessary to make this contribution on behalf of its copyright owner and agree
  to license it to the TeSS codebase under the
  BSD license.

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

This PR migrates authors and contributors from simple string arrays to a new Person model with name and orcid fields. It introduces a reusable HasPeople concern with a has_person_role macro, updates Bioschemas output to include ORCID identifiers, adds a custom display_people helper with profile/ORCID links, and implements PersonLinkWorker to automatically link Person records to TeSS profiles by ORCID.

Changes:

• New Person model and HasPeople/HasOrcid concerns, plus database migrations migrating existing string data
• Updated controllers, serializers, views, and Bioschemas generator to use the new structured Person model
• Comprehensive new test coverage for the Person model, worker, and updated ingestor/controller tests

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 61 out of 62 changed files in this pull request and generated 7 comments.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
app/models/person.rb	New Person model with ORCID support, autocomplete query, and profile auto-linking
app/models/concerns/has_people.rb	New concern with has_person_role macro and flexible setter accepting strings/hashes/Person objects
app/models/concerns/has_orcid.rb	New concern extracting ORCID normalization shared between Profile and Person
app/models/profile.rb	Includes HasOrcid concern; triggers PersonLinkWorker after ORCID authentication
app/models/material.rb / workflow.rb / learning_path.rb	Include HasPeople, use has_person_role for authors/contributors
app/workers/person_link_worker.rb	Background worker that re-saves Person records by ORCID to update profile links
lib/bioschemas/generator.rb	Adds @id/identifier (ORCID URL) to Person schema output
app/helpers/materials_helper.rb	New display_people helper rendering profile/ORCID links
app/controllers/*_controller.rb	Updated *_params to permit structured authors/contributors and people_attributes
app/serializers/*_serializer.rb	Serializes authors/contributors as display name arrays via people helper
db/migrate/202602*.rb – 202603*.rb	Migrations to create people table, migrate legacy data, rename columns
db/schema.rb	Reflects new people table and renamed deprecated_* columns
test/models/person_test.rb	New comprehensive tests for Person model
test/workers/person_link_worker_test.rb	New tests for PersonLinkWorker
test/models/profile_test.rb	Updated to assert PersonLinkWorker job is enqueued on ORCID change
test/controllers/materials_controller_test.rb / workflows_controller_test.rb / learning_paths_controller_test.rb	New tests for structured/legacy author update endpoints
test/unit/ingestors/*_test.rb	Updated assertions to use display_name/ORCID on Person objects
test/fixtures/people.yml	New fixture file for Person records
app/views/common/_people_form.html.erb / _person_form.html.erb	New people sub-form partials for the UI
app/assets/javascripts/people.js	New JS for dynamic people form (autocomplete, add/remove)

---

💡 Add Copilot custom instructions for smarter, more guided reviews. Learn how to get started.

You can also share your feedback on Copilot code review. Take the survey.

[Lucas-Souza-Sarmento]

Check.

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 61 out of 62 changed files in this pull request and generated 7 comments.

---

💡 Add Copilot custom instructions for smarter, more guided reviews. Learn how to get started.

You can also share your feedback on Copilot code review. Take the survey.