Dataverse

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Open source web application for interacting with research data

title: "Dataverse" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["harvard-library", "open-science", "open-data", "open-access-archives", "open-access-(publishing)", "academic-publishing", "data-publishing", "scholarly-databases"] description: "Open source web application for interacting with research data" topic_path: "technology/databases" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dataverse" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Open source web application for interacting with research data ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox software"]

FieldValue
titleDataverse
logo
collapsible
screenshot
authorHarvard University
released
ver layout
discontinued
latest release date
latest preview date
repo
programming languageJava
engine
platformJava
language count
licenseApache License 2.0
website
::

| title = Dataverse | logo = | logo caption = | logo alt = | logo size = | collapsible = | screenshot = | screenshot size = | screenshot alt = | caption = | other_names = | author = Harvard University | developer = | released = | ver layout = | discontinued = | latest release version = | latest release date = | latest preview version = | latest preview date = | repo = | qid = | programming language = Java | middleware = | engine = | operating system = | platform = Java | included with = | replaces = | replaced_by = | service_name = | size = | standard = | language = | language count = | language footnote = | genre = | license = Apache License 2.0 | website = | AsOf = The Dataverse is an open source 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, 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 established in Norway (cf. DataverseNO).

Dataverse in Canada

In Canada, Borealis is a national instance of the Dataverse repository hosted by OCUL's Scholars Portal at the University of Toronto. Borealis allows institutions to offer a Dataverse service without operating and maintaining the software themselves. Most academic institutions offering a Dataverse service in Canada subscribe to the Borealis service. The associated community of practice is organized through the Digital Research Alliance of Canada's Network of Experts via the Dataverse North Expert Group, a coordination, collaboration and communication instance.

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:

APIs and interoperability

The Dataverse currently has multiple open APIs 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

References

  1. Crosas, M.. "The Dataverse Network: An Open-Source Application for Sharing, Discovering and Preserving Data". D-Lib Magazine.
  2. "About the Project".
  3. Chander, Sharat. (September 16, 2019). "2019 Duke's Choice Award Winners!".
  4. "History of the Project". About the Project.
  5. "DataverseNL".
  6. "DataverseNO".
  7. "Borealis: A New Name for Laurier's Dataverse Data Repository {{!}} Laurier Library".
  8. "Introducing Borealis, the Canadian Dataverse Repository / le dépôt Dataverse - Dataverse - SPOT-DOCS".
  9. "Network of Experts".

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::

harvard-libraryopen-scienceopen-dataopen-access-archivesopen-access-(publishing)academic-publishingdata-publishingscholarly-databases