Changes to how we use the term “Dataverse”

[Crosas, Mercè]

Dear Dataverse Community,

Several years ago, we registered the Dataverse trademark. This was to ensure that when someone was referring to Dataverse, they’d be referring to:

“Computer software used in connection with research data archival services for analyzing, citing, archiving, transforming, subsetting, preserving, sharing, accessing, searching, retrieving, downloading and managing electronic research data.”

To keep ensuring that Dataverse will always mean what’s defined above and to protect the existing trademark, we need to make some changes about how we use the term “Dataverse.” If we are not specific about using the term and applying “Dataverse” to too many things, we may run into undesirable outcomes. The changes that we need to make are to:

• Use “Dataverse” as an adjective, not as a noun.

• Capitalize the term “Dataverse” whenever it is used in the text.

• Use “Dataverse installation” or “Dataverse repository” when referring to cases where an institution has downloaded the Dataverse software and installed it locally.

• Use “Dataverse collection” when referring to a grouping of datasets within a Dataverse repository (instead of using lower case "dataverse"). Examples are “journal Dataverse collection,” “AJPS Dataverse collection,” and “Gary King Dataverse collection.” If there is one Dataverse collection that is a child of another Dataverse collection, it can be called a Dataverse sub-collection or child Dataverse collection.

• Use “Dataverse software” when referring to the downloadable code and packages hosted in GitHub or when someone is making a pull request. An example is “a PR against the develop branch of the Dataverse software.”

This applies to Dataverse Project websites, the Dataverse Project Guides, the Dataverse software itself, and other communications. Those watching https://dataverse.org closely have already seen the changes take place. https://guides.dataverse.org is next, and we’ll soon start making changes to the Dataverse software itself. 

I understand that these are significant changes, and I appreciate the effort that it will take from all of us to get these changes into place. Legalities aside, I’m hopeful that this provides us an opportunity to provide clearer messaging and better support across the Dataverse Community. We will continue updating you of any additional trademark related changes as we learn more about the next steps.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Thank you on behalf of the Dataverse Project Team,

Mercè

--

Mercè Crosas, Ph.D.

University Research Data Management Officer, Harvard University Information Technology

Chief Data Science and Technology Officer, Institute for Quantitative Social Science

Harvard University

mcr...@g.harvard.edu | @mercecrosas | scholar.harvard.edu/mercecrosas

[Vyacheslav Tikhonov]

Thanks, Merce! Do you also have some comments on Microsoft Dataverse?

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powerapps/maker/data-platform/data-platform-intro

Best,

Slava

[Crosas, Mercè]

Slava,

Thanks for the question, and sorry about the late reply.  We are indeed aware of the issue with Microsoft and are in conversations with Harvard's attorneys to find a resolution that works for everybody. We will provide an update as soon as we can.

All the best,

Merce

--

Mercè Crosas, Ph.D.

University Research Data Management Officer, Harvard University Information Technology

Chief Data Science and Technology Officer, Institute for Quantitative Social Science

Harvard University

mcr...@g.harvard.edu | @mercecrosas | scholar.harvard.edu/mercecrosas

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[John Huck]

Thank you, Mercè, for sharing information about these plans.

Can you say what quarter we might expect to see the change implemented in the software? Or, alternatively, when the change might be indicated on the roadmap? I see some references to 'Dataverse collections' in descriptions of Q1 items on the roadmap, but I'm not sure if this means the change will be implemented in the software at that time as well. Thanks.

Sincerely,

John

--

John Huck, MLIS

Metadata Librarian / University of Alberta Library / he/him/his

ᐊᒥᐢᑲᐧᒋᐋᐧᐢᑲᐦᐃᑲᐣ / Amiskwaciwâskahikan / Edmonton

The University of Alberta respectfully acknowledges that we are situated on Treaty 6 territory, traditional lands of First Nations and Métis people.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/dataverse-community/CA%2B_j1JkB98cSvihYE%2BNpZT5cL94PgOwCENpQZi6w%3D7FU3NqWtQ%40mail.gmail.com.

[danny...@g.harvard.edu]

Hey John, good eye on the changes to the Roadmap. The Roadmap, dataverse.org, and other sites that we control were updated recently to reflect the new terminology. This week, we merged a PR that updates our documentation, and changes to guides.dataverse.org will be reflected in the next release. 

Next we'll update the Dataverse Software itself. I've started on an inventory to identify areas that we'll need to change, and once we have a good idea of what needs to change we'll work to implement it as quickly as possible. I expect that this work will be concluded in Q1.

Thanks,

Danny 

[John Huck]

Thanks for the timeline details, Danny. Very helpful. There's no time like the present.

Cheers,

John

--

John Huck, MLIS

Metadata Librarian / University of Alberta Library / he/him/his

ᐊᒥᐢᑲᐧᒋᐋᐧᐢᑲᐦᐃᑲᐣ / Amiskwaciwâskahikan / Edmonton

The University of Alberta respectfully acknowledges that we are situated on Treaty 6 territory, traditional lands of First Nations and Métis people.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/dataverse-community/1b721927-fe42-499d-8ccd-d302930f723an%40googlegroups.com.