What is Aggie Experts?

Aggie Experts is a platform for finding researchers and experts at UC Davis. A pilot project led jointly by the Office of the Provost and the UC Davis Library, it is designed to facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration, showcase the research being done at the university, and reduce administrative workload for faculty. Aggie Experts can be used to find collaborators, mentors and expert opinions.

How is Aggie Experts used with SiteFarm?

Users can now create Person profile pages easily by entering the email address or Expert ID into the field and syncing the available data using the provided checkbox and button. On Save, the integrated plugin communicates with the service and pulls in any information available for the relevant fields. It's a quick, simple way to add faculty members' Person profiles to your site.

The Person page will be populated with Name, Pronouns, Email, and if available, Website URL, Bio, the five most recent publications and their ORCID ID if provided.

How to use the Aggie Experts feature with your Person page

1. Navigate to Shortcuts » Add content.
2. Select the Person page type.
3. Click Edit and then, under the righthand Additional Options section, locate and click on the Aggie Experts label to expand it.
4. In the field provided, enter the eligible faculty member's email address or Expert ID. It may be difficult to acquire the ID information, so we recommend focusing on the person's email address.
5. Once you begin typing, a checkbox and button will appear. Upon checking the box and clicking the button, the plugin will initialize the process of pulling the data from the Aggie Experts service to fill in the pertinent fields on your page. When it's finished, those fields will be grayed out and unavailable for editing.
   • checkbox: Automatically sync ← check the box
     Automatically update data from Aggie Experts
   • button: Load expert data ← click the button after checking the box
6. You will see in real time as the fields are filled. Once the sync is complete, you will notice the fields are grayed out and uneditable and a message will appear beneath the field, reading, "Field controlled by Aggie Experts automatic sync."
7. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click Save to finish.
8. While in the default View tab, review the information added to the page to confirm it accurately synced the information from Aggie Experts.

Additional Information

• Can I overwrite an existing profile page with the person's information on Aggie Experts?
• Yes. A Person profile page already in use on your site can be overwritten. Follow the steps above and the original content in the applicable fields will be replaced with whatever is currently stored in the member's profile on Aggie Experts.
• Why isn’t the person’s email address showing up in Aggie Experts?

• There are two potential reasons why an email address might not appear in an individual’s Aggie Experts profile:

  UC Davis Health affiliation. At the request of UC Davis Health leadership, email addresses have been concealed for all faculty and researchers at UC Davis Health. There is no current override mechanism to display email addresses for these individuals.

  Individual choice. Individuals can opt to conceal their own email address from publication on UC Davis directories and public websites by unchecking the “WWW” box in the campus Online Directory. If an individual has made this selection, Aggie Experts will not display their email address. If the individual decides to have their email address displayed in the future, they can check the WWW box in the campus Online Directory and their email address will appear in Aggie Experts with the next weekly data sync.

• Can I ever edit the fields again?
• Yes. If you uncheck the Automatically sync box, you will have access to the fields again. Please note that the box must remained checked in order to receive periodic sync updates.
• What's the difference between Automatically sync and Load expert data?
• Automatic sync is what links your Person page to the Aggie Experts service. Technically, you could check this box and save your page without ever clicking on the Load button; but if you do so, you will at least need to fill in the Last Name field before clicking Save as that's a required field on the Person page. The Load expert data button is intended as a one-time quick start to fill the information on the page for a clean first save, after which you won't need to use it again provided the Automatic sync box remains checked.
• How often is the information updated?
• Per the Aggie Expert site, scholarly publications are updated weekly, while grants information are updated quarterly.
• Where can I learn more about Aggie Experts?
• We would recommend beginning with the service's FAQ page.