The Dataverse is an

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

web application to share, preserve, cite, explore and analyze research data. Researchers, data authors, publishers, data distributors, and affiliated institutions all receive appropriate credit via a data citation with a persistent identifier (e.g., DOI, or handle). A Dataverse repository hosts multiple dataverses. Each dataverse contains dataset(s) or other dataverses, and each dataset contains descriptive metadata and data files (including documentation and code that accompany the data). In 2019, Dataverse won the Duke's Choice Award for university and higher education.

Background

The Dataverse Project is housed and developed by the Dataverse Team at the Institute for Quantitative Social Science (IQSS) at Harvard University. Coding of the Dataverse (previously known as Dataverse Network) software began in 2006 under the leadership of Mercè Crosas and Gary King. The earlier Virtual Data Center (VDC) project, which spanned 1999-2006, was organized by Micah Altman, Gary King, and Sidney Verba as a collaboration between the Harvard-MIT Data Center (now part of IQSS) and the Harvard University Library. Precursors to the VDC date to 1987, comprising such entities as a stand-alone software guide to local data, preweb software, and tools to transfer cataloging information by FTP to other sites across campus automatically at designated times.

Installations

Harvard Dataverse

A collaboration with the Institute for Quantitative Social Science (IQSS), the

Harvard Library Harvard Library is the umbrella organization for Harvard University's libraries and services. It is the oldest library system in the United States and both the largest academic library and largest private library in the world. Its collection ...

, and Harvard University Information Technology (HUIT): the Harvard Dataverse is a repository for sharing, citing, analyzing, and preserving research data. It is open to all scientific data from all disciplines worldwide.

Dataverse in Europe

Dataverse is also installed in the countries of the European Union to preserve data collected by research communities of Netherlands, Germany, France and Finland. The largest Dataverse repository is called DataverseNL and located in the Netherlands providing data management services for 11 Dutch Universities. A similar service is being developed in Norway (cf. DataverseNO).

Dataverse installations around the world

There are several other Dataverse repositories installed in Universities and organizations around the world. Here is a list of some Dataverse repositories: *The Austrian Social Science Data Archiv
(AUSSDA)
*Odum Institute * Dutch Universities
dataverse.nl
operated b
DANS
* Fudan University * University of Alberta Libraries *Department of Cross Cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen (ToRS) *ABACUS - British Columbia Research Libraries' Data Services *Scholars Portal - Ontario Council of University Libraries (OCUL) *HeiDATA - Heidelberg University *DataverseNO (Norwegian universities) *CIRAD Dataverse (France) *DataSuds (France) *Th
Australian Data Archive

APIs and interoperability

The Dataverse currently has multiple open

APIs Apis or APIS may refer to: * Apis (deity), an ancient Egyptian god * Apis (Greek mythology), several different figures in Greek mythology * Apis (city), an ancient seaport town on the northern coast of Africa **Kom el-Hisn, a different Egyptian ci ...

available, which allow for searching, depositing and accessing data.

Alternatives and similar projects

DSpace is often compared with Dataverse and is used for storing scientific data. CKAN provides similar functions and is widely used for open data.

References

External links

The Dataverse ProjectThe Harvard DataverseThe DataverseNL Data Repository (Netherlands)DataverseNO - Dataverse Network NorwayMap of Dataverse repositories around the world
{{Authority control Harvard Library Open science Open data Open-access archives Open access (publishing) Academic publishing Data publishing Scholarly communication