The SODA project is organizing a FOSDEM’20 fringe meeting about Dataverse.

Dataverse is a free, open-source software program that allows ingest, documentation and dissemination of datasets. As such, it is used by many data archives and repositories around the world among which several members of the Consortium of European Social Science Data Archives (CESSDA). As the CESSDA Belgian representative, the SODA project is about to finish setting up a Dataverse instance, which will be launched in the late summer of 2020.

This fringe meeting is an opportunity to share experiences with Dataverse and promote networking among Dataverse users in Europe and beyond. We are proud to announce that one of the Dataverse developers, Philip Durbin from Harvard University, will be among us!

Program

While aiming to respect the free and open spirit of FOSDEM, the meeting will be structured as follows: after introducing the Belgian context, the State Archives representatives will explain why they chose Dataverse and present their user experience with the program so far in the light of SODA’s special needs. Comments and suggestions from all parties will be welcomed.

External participants will then be invited to share their own experience with Dataverse. Guests are welcome to present their own Dataverse installation, whether with a standalone presentation or a live demonstration of the program. We hope to learn as much as we can from each other by highlighting the specific aspects of every situation and explaining how user needs were tackled one way or another.

As a point of note, Philip Durbin will also give a speech about Dataverse, ‘Advancing science with Dataverse: Publication, Discovery, Citation, and Exploration of Research Data’, during FOSDEM’20 on Sunday 2 February from 2 pm to 2:15 pm at the Université libre de Bruxelles.

Practical information

Drinks and sandwiches will be available. Attendance is free, yet registration is mandatory. Please send an email to Benjamin Peuch if you wish to participate.

The language of the meeting is English.