Your Dataverses – Learn @ Scholars Portal

Creating Your Account

Before you can start adding your data to Scholars Portal Dataverse, you must first create an account.

To do this, visit the Dataverse home page and click “Sign Up” in the upper right corner. Fill in the required information on the following page to create your account.

Selecting your affiliated institution from the dropdown menu will make that institution’s dataverse your assigned dataverse; if you are not affiliated with an institution (or do not wish to have the institutional dataverse as your main dataverse), simply select “Other”.

Please note that in order to create your account you will need to agree to Scholars Portal’s Terms of Use.

Managing Your Account

Once you have a Dataverse account, you can change the account information (such as name, password, or university affiliation) at any time.

Clicking on the user name on the upper right corner of the page displays the drop down menu showing user settings and account information.

My Data

Here you will find a listing of all the dataverses, datasets, and files that you have created, uploaded or that you have access to edit. Use the filters provided to search through all the listed dataverses, datasets, and files.

Notifications

Notifications appear in the notifications tab on your account page and are also displayed as a number in a red box next to your account name.

Dataverse will send you a notification when you create your account, after you’ve created a dataverse or added a dataset, or when another Dataverse user has requested access to a restricted file in one of your datasets.

Account Information

This page allows you to view and edit your account information, including user name, email address and affiliated institution. Your account password can also be reset from here.

API Token

An API token is a form of authentication which is similar to a username and password. Use this tab to create a new API Token. For more information on Dataverse’s APIs, please see the API Guide.

Creating a Dataverse

Once you have an account and are logged in, you can create your own dataverses.

Note that each institution using Scholars Portal Dataverse may set up the service differently for their users. If you don’t see the “Add Data” button appear after login, follow any instructions provided on your institution’s Dataverse landing page, or contact the administrator for your institution’s Dataverse to find out how to deposit using the “Contact” link in the upper-right corner of the dataverse.

Step 1: Researchers affiliated with a participating institution

If you have specified an institution in your account information, you will be taken directly to that institution's dataverse when you log in.

Step 1: Other researchers

If you have not specified an institution in your account information, you will be taken to the root Scholars Portal Dataverse page when you log in.

Step 2: Open a new dataverse

Click on Add Data and select “New Dataverse”

Step 3: Add in the required information about the dataverse

Fill in the required information and select Create Dataverse at the bottom of the page. Tip: make sure that the Host Dataverse listed is correct

Step 4: Process is complete

Your dataverse has been created! Now you can add datasets or other dataverses to it, publish the dataverse, or edit its information (please see the section below for further details).

Please see the Advanced User Guide here for more information on creating dataverses.

Editing a Dataverse

To edit a dataverse, first select “My Data” from the drop down menu. Next, select the dataverse you would like to edit from your list.
Click on the “Edit” button to display the dropdown menu with the various editing options.
Editing options you will see include:

General Information : Edit the name, identifier, category, contact email, affiliation, description, Metadata Elements, and facets associated with your dataverse.
Theme and Widgets : Upload a logo for your dataverse, add a link to your department or personal website, and select colors for your dataverse to personalize it. Also get codes to add to your website to have your dataverse displayed on it.
Permissions : Give other Dataverse users permission to see or add to your dataverse. Permissions can be granted for both individuals and groups, and can be applied to both published and unpublished dataverses. This function will also let you assign individuals roles for the dataverse, making this an excellent tool to facilitate group collaboration.
Dataset Templates : You can create a study template to copy the metadata from a similar study so that you do not have to re-enter the data for each individual study; for example, if you have multiple studies that were a part of the same project, you may want to create a template.
Dataset Guestbooks : Keep track of who is downloading the files from your datasets.
Featured Dataverses : If you have one or more dataverses, you can use this option to show featured dataverses at the top of your dataverse page. This can help you and others easily find interesting or important dataverses.
Delete Dataverse: You are able to delete your dataverse as long as it is not published and does not have any draft datasets.

For more information on each of these topics, please see the Advanced User Guide.

Dataverse Permissions

Going to a dataverse’s “Permissions” section allows you to control who has access to your dataverse, and determines how much access they are granted.

The top “Permissions” tab lets you specify who can add information to the dataverse (ranging from anyone with a Dataverse account to only those granted access).

The middle “Users / Groups” tab lets you assign specific roles to groups or individuals, which also determines how much control these groups or individuals will have over the dataverse.

If you are not certain what each of the specific roles involves, click on the bottom “Roles” tab to see a description of the various roles that you are able to assign.

See the Advanced User Guide here for more information on assigning roles and permissions.

Advanced Permissions

Would you like to grant dataverse /study/data access permissions only to researchers at your institution? This can be accomplished by using an IP group from a participating institution. These are able to identify users accessing Dataverse 4 items from a specific IP range (e.g. while on campus at a particular institution).

The following groups have already been created for participating institutions:

AlgomaIP
BrockIP
GuelphIP
LakeheadIP
LaurentianIP
McMasterIP
NipissingIP
OCADIP
OttawaIP
QueensIP
RMCIP
RyersonIP
TrentIP
OCULIP (for all OCUL schools)
UOITIP
UofTIP
WesternIP
WindsorIP
WaterlooIP
WLUIP
YorkIP

Clicking on the “Assign Roles to Groups/Users” button on the “Users/Groups tab will display this pop-up box. Find the name of the institution’s OCUL IP group in the list provided above and enter it into the search box.

Once you have entered the institutional IP group, select which role you would like to assign to Dataverse users from that IP address.

Publishing a Dataverse

When you publish a dataverse, you make it available to the public so that other users can browse or search for it.

Once your dataverse or dataset is ready to go public, go to its page and click on the “Publish” button on the right hand side of the page. A pop-up will appear to confirm that you are ready to publish since once a dataset or dataverse is made public it cannot be unpublished.

Metadata

For a full list of metadata fields in Dataverse and descriptions view this pdf document.

Dataverse metadata is compliant with:

DDI schema version 2. Metadata can be mapped easily to a DDI, and be exported into XML format for preservation and interoperability.
Simple Dublin Core (DC) requirements.
For imports only, Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata (CSDGM), Vers. 2 (FGDC-STD-001-1998) (FGDC).

See the Advanced User Guide’s Metadata References section for more information on the metadata schemas supported for Citation and Domain Specific Metadata in Dataverse.