The GREI repositories at Open Repositories 2023 — Stellenbosch, South Africa
The 18th International Open Repositories Conference (OR2023) was hosted by Stellenbosch University in South Africa from June 12–15, 2023. Each day of the conference offered myriad opportunities to network and build skills and knowledge in areas including FAIR and open data, persistent identifiers, interoperability and findability of datasets, and increasing equity in both depositing and accessing data.
Representatives of the GREI repositories attended OR2023 and made robust contributions in the form of workshops. In each workshop, details on utilizing and maximizing the repositories were shared, questions were addressed, and connections were made.
Dataverse
The Dataverse Project participated with several presentations and a workshop on best practices for using a Dataverse repository. The presentations included: “Curating big data for reuse,” which addresses curating big data in the Harvard Dataverse repository, including challenges and solutions, and larger questions for the community about how generalists repositories and technical infrastructures could meet these challenges. Another presentation, “Modularity and interoperability in generalist data repositories,” addresses improvements to The Dataverse Project software, with the following goals: modernize the application, separate backend and frontend to increase interoperability, Dataverse backend becomes an API-first application, extend modularization of backend and frontend, speed up development and implementation of new UI/UX ideas, Native accessibility (A11y) and internationalization (i18n) support, with the ultimate goal of empowering the community of Dataverse users worldwide. A collaborative presentation between the Australian Data Archive repository and the Dataverse Project titled, “Australian Data Archive (ADA) and Australian National University (ANU) and The Dataverse Project, TKLabels use case,” addresses the need and one possible development to support Indigenous metadata in Dataverse repositories. The RIDAGOP (Indigenous data sovereignty) toolkit (https://toolkit.ridagop.net) allows developers to create generic data-management processes, and connect them to data-repository systems. A demo of the initiative addressing two major processes; adding Local Contexts Labels to datasets and how to create a customizable data access application processes is available. Lastly, there was a presentation on the collaboration between the Harvard Data Commons, the DASH publishing system, and The Dataverse Project utilizing COAR notify to establish connections between data repositories and DSPACE, titled, “The Harvard Data Commons project: leveraging COAR Notify to create interoperability between Harvard data and institutional repositories (Harvard Data Commons).”
Figshare
Figshare contributed a workshop and a session talk to OR2023. The workshop was on how end users, authors, and repository administrators can use the Figshare API to access metadata and files or manage records. There is a lot of interest in interoperability with institutional reporting systems and research tracking systems and the API provides a way to pull in metadata, whether from the generalist figshare.com repository, another institution or publisher using Figshare, or an institution’s own repository. The workshop materials are available for anyone to access and reuse. The contributed session was titled “FAIR Code Sharing in Open Access Repositories”.The presentation noted that GitHub is increasingly mentioned in data availability statements as the location for both shared code and shared data and described why this is less than ideal. It then used examples from three GREI repository partners, Figshare, Harvard Dataverse, and Zenodo, to illustrate how researchers share and cite code with varying levels of adherence to best practices and suggested ways institutions and data curators can help researchers share code more FAIRly.
Zenodo
Team members from Zenodo contributed a workshop to OR2023 detailing the functions and characteristics of InvenioRDM, the Python-based, modular open source software which, by the end of 2023, will serve as the new feature-rich back-end of Zenodo.org and which is available for local implementation now. After providing a demonstration of the repository’s key functions and features, team members presented a wide range of topics related to InvenioRDM features and deployment, including:
- custom tools and a CLI command enabling very large file upload for a local InvenioRDM instance at TU Wien Research Data;
- integration of IIIF into InvenioRDM (International Image Interoperability Framework, a set of standards for rendering high-quality, citable digital objects);
- a presentation on the launch of Northwestern University’s Prism instance, with a particular focus on successful migration of awkward data;
- an outline of CERN’s detailed preparations to seamlessly achieve fast and efficient data migration of Zenodo to the new InvenioRDM back-end;
- details and opportunities for customized deployment of InvenioRDM instances; and
- InvenioRDM’s support of the FAIR principles, including the platform’s support for data policy initiatives
Project members also contributed to the ROR workshop with a presentation on InvenioRDM’s mature integration with ROR (the Research Organization Registry), and a communication protocol to connect machine-actionable DMPs with InvenioRDM. In keeping with tradition, Zenodo contributed to the annual Repository Rodeo with a community update of Zenodo and the migration of Zenodo to the InvenioRDM framework. All of the InvenioRDM presentations are now available for download from the 2023 InvenioRDM Workshop Community and from the Open Repositories Community, both hosted in Zenodo. Learn more about InvenioRDM on the InvenioRDM project site.
We were thrilled to meet with some of you, and with open science, data, and repository professionals from around the world, in beautiful Stellenbosch, Somerset West, and Cape Town. However, our outreach for this year is far from complete. A virtual opportunity to engage with the GREI collaborators is currently on the horizon. We are in the midst of planning an August 1, 2023 webinar that will outline the research data use cases that each of the GREI repositories supports. Keep an eye on our website and Twitter (#GREI) to learn more.
Authors: Sara Gonzales https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1193-2298, Sonia Barbosa https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5477-3522, Andrew McKenna-Foster https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7641-6588
Keywords: generalist repositories, National Institutes of Health (NIH), Generalist Repository Ecosystem Initiative (GREI), Open Repositories, open science, open data, data sharing FAIR data
About GREI
The Generalist Repository Ecosystem Initiative (GREI) is a U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) initiative which has brought seven generalist repositories together into a collaborative working group focused on establishing “a common set of cohesive and consistent capabilities, services, metrics, and social infrastructure” and increasing awareness and adoption of the FAIR principles.
