Scholars Portal Dataverse is becoming Borealis, the Canadian Dataverse Repository / le dépôt Dataverse canadien

 June 1, 2022

Scholars Portal Dataverse is becoming Borealis, the Canadian Dataverse Repository / le dépôt Dataverse canadien.

This new name is the culmination of a collaborative effort with representatives from the four regional library consortia, the Digital Research Alliance of Canada, and community members (like you!) and reflects the new identity as a national service connecting Canadian researchers.

This change is planned to go live on June 23 at borealisdata.ca.

For full details, please visit the Borealis blog post.

New Dataverse and Research Data Repositories Training Modules

June 21, 2021

Portage has published several new online modules to help researchers and other stakeholders navigate the world of research data repositories.

Dataverse 101: Module 1 is the first of a planned series of modules on the Dataverse repository platform. This module helps users learn about the purpose, importance, and benefits of sharing research data, and gives an overview of the Dataverse platform and its key features. It also discusses the benefits of using Dataverse repositories, and presents scenarios in which users might deposit their data in a Dataverse repository. Finally, the module outlines some situations in which a Dataverse repository might not be a suitable option, and gives an opportunity for users to test their knowledge.

The Research Data Repositories 101 series of modules will help users learn about the role that research data repositories play in good research data management (RDM), and in meeting the requirements of the Tri-Agency RDM Policy. These modules will help researchers learn about different types of research data repositories, policies and practices that affect these repositories, and what they should consider when choosing a repository in which to deposit their data. There are seven modules in this series:

• Background and Learning Objectives
  
• What are Research Data Repositories?
  
• Types of Research Data Repositories
  
• TRUST and FAIR Principles for Research Data Repositories
  
• Research Data Policies Landscape: Funders’, Publishers’, and Institutional
  
• Glossary of Terms
  
• Test Your Knowledge!
  

These resources were developed through the hard work of Portage’s Dataverse North Working Group on Training, and the Data Repositories 101 Working Group of Portage’s National Training Expert Group. The modules are graciously hosted by Scholars Portal. If you have any questions, please contact Portage Training Coordinator Jennifer Abel at jennifer.abel@engagedri.ca.

New Scholars Portal Datasets

Dalhousie University Libraries has recently made three datasets available via Scholars Portal Dataverse:

1. 2016 Census of Population ADA and DA PDF maps for Nova Scotia counties. The ADA reference maps were available for the first time with the 2016 Census via the Statistics Canada website. According to the Statistics Canada website, DA reference maps were not produced for the 2016 census. However, we were provided with Nova Scotia DA reference maps after we contacted the agency. These datasets have both ADA and DA PDF maps for Nova Scotia counties, with a readme file for corresponding DA to ADA:

https://dataverse.scholarsportal.info/dataverse/census2016maps/

2. Crime Severity Index values ranking for communities with population over 10000 (2009-2018). The principal behind the Crime Severity Index (CSI) was to measure the seriousness of crime reported to the police year to year by Statistics Canada. Data for Crime Severity Index for population over 10000 (CSI_over10000) was first published by Statistics Canada in 2009. However, CSI_over10000 data is not publicly available from Statistics Canada website. This dataset will be kept up-to-date as new tables are released:

https://dataverse.scholarsportal.info/dataverse/CSI/

3. Fisherman’s Work Survey (1982). This is a Southwestern Nova Scotian fisheries labour survey conducted by Dalhousie researchers. This dataset contains the Nova Scotia Fisherman’s Work survey data in SPSS (sav) and text (csv) format, coding of the variables, and selected literature. The survey data has 150 variables and 597 observations:

https://dataverse.scholarsportal.info/dataverse/fishermansworksurvey

Hopefully, these data will be useful for researchers at your institutions. The first two Statistics Canada datasets are licensed under the Statistics Canada Open License. The Fisherman’s Work Survey data is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. The published article for “Work Satisfaction and Community Attachment among Fishermen in SW NS” is not licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, but is still openly available via Dataverse.