Help with feedback about plan for Dataverse's DataCite and OpenAIRE exports

[Gautier, Julian]

Hi everyone,

I'm emailing today to increase awareness of and gather feedback about a proposal regarding Dataverse's OpenAIRE and "Datacite" metadata exports.

In order to reduce the maintenance burden of and confusion about the "Datacite" and "OpenAIRE" metadata exports, and following reviews of the two metadata exports and OpenAIRE's requirements, I've proposed that we merge the two metadata exports, so that Dataverse comes with only one DataCite export, named "DataCite" in the UI and named "oai_datacite" in the API, and interested managers of Dataverse repositories can continue letting OpenAIRE use the "oai_datacite" format to harvest from their Dataverse repositories.

I'd like to learn what folks think about this, particular folks who manage Dataverse repositories and that tell or plan to tell OpenAIRE to harvest the metadata published in their repositories.

If you're interested, by March 1 2026, please review the GitHub issue at  https://github.com/IQSS/dataverse/issues/11916 and reply here or feel free email me with any questions or concerns you might have.

In particular, do you have any questions about the details of the plan? Or do you have any concerns about how this might affect your team's goals of making the research objects that are published in your repositories easier for different types of users to find in OpenAIRE's systems?

After March 1, barring any surprises from your feedback, we'll prioritize the work involved in this change so that the change is made in the version of Dataverse that's released after v6.10.

Best regards,
Julian

Julian Gautier (he/him)

Product Research Specialist, IQSS

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[Philipp Conzett]

Hi Julian,

Thanks for sharing this and for doing this effort. I'll reach out to the DataverseNO community for feedback. From what I can see, this effort will make things less complicated. As long as the suggested approach supports both DataCite and OpenAIRE requirements and recommendations I can't see any obstacles.

Best,

Philipp

[Julian Gautier]

Awesome, thanks Phillipp!

[Stefano Bolelli Gallevi]

Hi, we (Dataverse UNIMI, University of Milan) also find this development useful and interesting in simplifying exports from Dataverse, and we agree with Philipp in not seeing any obstacles as long as the suggested approach supports both DataCite and OpenAIRE requirements and recommendations.
If not already in place, we suggest to have a contact with OpenAIRE to test the suggested approach before releasing in production.
We have our dataverse in OpenAIRE's Provide service ( https://provide.openaire.eu ) and we would like to be sure that periodical aggregation will not result in errors because of it.

Thanks for promoting this consultation

Stefano

Il giorno lunedì 23 febbraio 2026 alle 17:35:59 UTC+1 Julian Gautier ha scritto:

Awesome, thanks Phillipp!

[Julian Gautier]

Thanks Stefano.

I've been in touch with folks from OpenAIRE in hopes of coordinating with them.

About testing the suggested approach, I imagine this might involve telling OpenAIRE to harvest XML that's pointing to newer versions of the DataCite schema, like what we see at https://demo.dataverse.org/oai?verb=GetRecord&identifier=doi:10.5072/FK2/U6AEZM&metadataPrefix=Datacite.

Is that what you had in mind?

And if so, would it be possible for you to tell OpenAIRE to harvest from Dataverse UNIMI using the "Datacite" metadataPrefix to see what the results look like? I'm wondering if that might be a way of testing.

[Valentina Pasquale]

Hi all,

I have commented on the GitHub issue https://github.com/IQSS/dataverse/issues/11916 before reading this conversation. You can find my thoughts there.

Cheers,

Valentina

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[Valentina Pasquale]

Hi Julian,

regarding your question, 

> would it be possible for you to tell OpenAIRE to harvest from Dataverse UNIMI using the "Datacite" metadataPrefix to see what the results look like? I'm wondering if that might be a way of testing.

my understanding is that OpenAIRE already uses the oai_datacite metadata prefix to harvest Dataverse instances:

But I cannot be 100% sure :-)

Valentina

Il giorno mer 25 feb 2026 alle ore 16:42 Julian Gautier <julian...@g.harvard.edu> ha scritto:

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[Julian Gautier]

Hi Valentina,

Thanks for commenting on the GitHub issue.

I agree that OpenAIRE uses the oai_datacite metadata prefix to harvest Dataverse instances. That "oai_datacite" metadataPrefix was added when folks added the OpenAIRE export to Dataverse.

From what you've shared, it sounds like it won't be possible to tell OpenAIRE to use Dataverse 's "Datacite" metadata prefix, instead, as a way to see if there are any surprises about what OpenAIRE would do with the metadata that's in Dataverse's current "Datacite" export. But I still expect that OpenAIRE will be able to harvest what's in Dataverse's "Datacite" export, once it's renamed "oai_datacite".

Cheers,

Julian

[Stefano Bolelli Gallevi]

Hi Julian, I know from interaction with OpenAIRE folks that is possible to manage a rename of a metadata prefix renaiming all enpoints.

On the contrary if the change is in the structure and semantics of DataCite, for example new value templates (e.g. project references) or new vocabularies (e.g. COAR resource types), then it becomes a compatibility issue. Can you confirm that structure and semantics of DataCitewill not be touched by the metadata prefix renaming?
Regarding telling OpenAIRE to harvest XML that's pointing to newer versions of the DataCite schema, I think is something that need coordination between Dataverse and OpenAIRE too; to me Dataverse shuold be compatible with current OpenAIRE Guidelines for Data Archives https://guidelines.openaire.eu/en/latest/data/index.html and continuing be harvestable by OpenAIRE like is now, while OpenAIRE should update these guidelines so that current DataCite schema used by lates Dataverse version became compatible.

Is a shared effort, I think.

Best regards

Stefano

[Julian Gautier]

Hi Stefano,

I agree that it would be ideal for Dataverse to be compatible with the OpenAIRE guidelines you pointed to. But since 2017, when the OpenAIRE/"oai_datacite" export was added to Dataverse so that OpenAIRE could harvest from Dataverse repositories, Dataverse repositories have always told OpenAIRE to harvest XML that's pointing to a version of the DataCite schema, v4.1, that is newer than what's in OpenAIRE's guidelines, v3.1.

From what I can tell, the differences between DataCite's v3.1 schema and its v4.1 schema hasn't affected how discoverable datasets from Dataverse repositories are in OpenAIRE. I am curious about the validation run or compatibility test warnings and error messages that Valentina mentioned in a related GitHub issue earlier today. But it doesn't sound like those are severe and may not be related to how easily people using OpenAIRE's systems can find and understand datasets published in Dataverse repositories.

And definitely I agree this is a shared effort. The folks who added the OpenAIRE export to Dataverse were coordinating with folks from OpenAIRE when they worked on this in 2017. And I've been in touch with folks from OpenAIRE and hope to learn and share more about plans they have that would affect what we do with the OpenAIRE export.

[Vaidas Morkevičius]

Dear all,

I believe that OpenAIRE export is somewhat superfluous, since OpenAIRE uses (very dated) DataCite schema as their metadata standard for data objects. So removing OpenAIRE export may only cause temporary problems for Dataverse repositories (if any). However, it could "force" OpenAIRE to adapt a newer version of DataCite metadata scheme :-)

Best wishes,

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Vaidas Morkevičius

https://lida.dataverse.lt

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[Julian Gautier]

Hi Vaidas. This has sort of been my thinking, too. And at the least, efforts this year to resolve these challenges have encouraged more discussion and understanding. Last week I got to learn from Pedro and his colleagues at OpenAIRE about their plans for helping folks find datasets in OpenAIRE. They'll update the GitHub issue at https://github.com/IQSS/dataverse/issues/11916 with more info that I think we'll need to consider.