The Dataverse Network Project

Dataverses for Archives: Set up dataverses to hold your archival material, where the physical data reside with a Dataverse Network. Or install Dataverse Network software and host the data of your constituents and others.

What is a dataverse?

A dataverse is a virtual archive where you can acquire, manage, preserve, and distribute collections of data sets and associated documents and metadata. Services that a dataverse provides include persistent identifiers; citations; facilities for organization, distribution, storage, archiving, cataloging, preservation formatting, translation, and online analysis; distributed authentication and access control; remote repository caching; and virtual collections of remote objects. It's easy to customize your dataverse to look like part of your website.

How do I get a dataverse for my archive?

Go to http://dvn.iq.harvard.edu and click “Create Your Own Dataverse”. (It takes less than a minute!) After you create your dataverse, set up your collections, upload data or link to your existing archives, and customize your layouts to look like part of your website. Then set up groups and users with access rights, and release your dataverse to share it with others. Creating your dataverse is free, and it's easy. E-mail us at dvn_support@help.hmdc.harvard.edu for details.

What are the features?

• Procure safe and permanent data storage in preservation format.
• Remove need to translate data when statistical software formats change.
• Obtain formal citations to your data, including globally unique identifiers and universal numeric fingerprints.
• Establish an unbreakable link between archive data and related published work.
• Acquire easy ways for others to find your project’s data and related publications.
• Share your data with everyone, those who sign your licensing agreement, or only those individuals you approve.
• Allow users to download data in any format and run many advanced statistical methods on-line.
• Facilitate the persistence of an archival footprint and follow a business model for survival.
• Interoperate with other archives, harvest other's metadata, build common catalogs, and support cross-archive searching, browsing, and presentation.

What is the Dataverse Network Software?

It’s a web application that serves out individual dataverses to scholars, research groups, journals, presses, scholarly organizations, departments, libraries, universities, and archives. IQSS developed it at Harvard, and is one of several sites that maintain permanent archives and run the necessary software and servers. This software is open-source and free to use, and you do not need to install it to make your own dataverse.