R0.3. Brief Description of the Repository’s Designated Community

From the CTS application:
A clear definition of the Designated Community demonstrates that the applicant understands the scope, knowledge base, and methodologies - including preferred software/formats - of the user community or communities they are targeting. Please make sure that the response is sufficiently specific to enable reviewers to assess the adequacy of the curation and preservation measures described throughout the application.
 

Answers from successful applicants

Tilburg University Dataverse collection:

Tilburg University Dataverse is a research data repository for scientists affiliated at Tilburg University, the Netherlands. This concerns researchers in the fields of the social sciences (including economics and law) and humanities.
 

QDR:

QDR serves a global social science community and especially those researchers working with qualitative methods and data. Given the relative novelty of sharing qualitative social science data, especially in the US context, QDR’s staff actively engage in training researchers, providing in-person workshops (e.g., at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association and the annual Institute for Qualitative and Multi-Method Research) as well as remote instruction via webinars.

Links:
Short courses directed by QDR staff at the American Political Science Association's Annual Meeting: https://www.maxwell.syr.edu/moynihan/cqrm/Short_Courses_at_APSA/
Short courses directed by QDR staff at the international Institute for Qualitative and Multi-method Inquiry:
https://www.maxwell.syr.edu/uploadedFiles/moynihan/cqrm/IQMR%202018%20sc...
QDR Webinar on data management: https://qdr.syr.edu/qdr-blog/webinar-securely-managing-qualitative-data (QDR staff
organizes or participates in similar webinars regularly)
 

DataverseNO:

Since the DataverseNO repository provides free and open access to its collections, the Designated Community of the repository consists of both data contributors and data users. Data users include primarily researchers and research institutions, but also any other stakeholders in society reliant on access to knowledge, e.g. journalists, teachers, industry as well as the greater public. The interaction between data users and the repository happens primarily through direct contact with the contact person(s) for each dataset (see R11), and through the general contact information provided for each collection.

The term Designated Community is used here to describe the different user groups that in addition to being data users also are data contributors to the repository. As described in the section DESIGNATED COMMUNITY [1] of the About page on the DataverseNO info site, these user groups fall into three main categories:

1) researchers from Norwegian research institutions that are partners of DataverseNO
2) researchers working within the scope of any special collection within the DataverseNO repository
3) researchers from Norwegian research institutions that are not partner of DataverseNO.

Although a single researcher may belong to more than one of these user groups, each user group relates to their dedicated collection within DataverseNO, and each collection is organized and managed in a way that ensures that the needs of the user group are met to the largest possible extent.

The DataverseNO policies and guidelines are common for all collections within DataverseNO and describe the scope, knowledge base, and methodologies – as well as the curation needs – of the Designated Community targeted by DataverseNO. The partner agreement regulates the responsibility of the partner institution to understand and comply with these policies and guidelines, as well as the responsibility of UiT The Arctic University of Norway (owner of DataverseNO) to provide necessary training for the partner institutions.

1) First type of user groups
Researchers from DataverseNO partner institutions include employees, students and other affiliates of Norwegian research institutions that have signed a partner agreement with DataverseNO. Currently, there are nine partner institutions in DataverseNO (including UiT as the owner of DataverseNO), and all of them are Norwegian universities producing research within virtually all major scholarly disciplines.

2) Second type of user groups
A DataverseNO partner institution may establish special collections as described above. Special collections cover scholarly disciplines that are offered at the DataverseNO partner institutions and, as a main rule, they are therefore management and curated by Research Data Service staff at the institution responsible for the collection. A special collection is usually established on request from a user community, and is managed and curated in close dialog with the involved user community.

Currently, TROLLing (The Tromsø Repository of Language and Linguistics) is the only special collection in DataverseNO[2]. TROLLing is under the responsibility of, and is managed and operated, by UiT The Arctic University. TROLLing accepts open research data from linguists worldwide.

3) Third type of user groups
In addition to the two user groups above, DataverseNO offers their services to researchers from Norwegian research institutions that are not partnering with DataverseNO. Data from this third user group of DataverseNO are published in the top-level collection of the repository, and they are curated by Research Data Service staff at UiT The Arctic University of Norway (owner of DataverseNO). These data may come from any subject represented at any Norwegian research institution that is not partner of DataverseNO. As mentioned earlier, UiT The Arctic University of Norway – as many of the other DataverseNO partner institutions – produce research within virtually all major scholarly disciplines. Research Data Service staff from UiT are thus very likely to cover all the potential subjects represented by researchers from this third user group. In the unlikely case where Research Data Service staff at UiT are not sufficiently familiar with the subject represented by a dataset deposited into the DataverseNO top-level collection they discuss the dataset with Research Data Service staff from other DataverseNO partner institutions and the research community at the home institution of the data author before curating the dataset.

The majority of the Norwegian universities and university colleges are already partners of DataverseNO. We therefore emphasize that the third user group of DataverseNO currently constitutes – and is estimated to constitute also in the future – only a small part of the Designated Community of DataverseNO. All Norwegian research institutions have recognized the importance of offering their researchers (a) reliable service(s) where their research data can be curated and published according to institutional, national, and international standards and best practice recommendations. Therefore, it is – at least in a Norwegian context – highly unlikely that there will be published many datasets in DataverseNO from (a) researcher(s) from a non-partner institution without the management of the non-partner institution deciding to become a partner of DataverseNO and get their own institutional collection within the repository.

All user groups of the Designated Community of DataverseNO have in common that the first-line services offered by, and the communication with, the repository are channeled through the curator(s) of the applicable collection. For a description of the communication between the Designated Community and DataverseNO, see the section DESIGNATED COMMUNITY [1] of the About page on the DataverseNO info site.

Finally, it must be stressed that the mission of DataverseNO is to be a national GENERIC repository for open research data (see R1). Despite its generic mission, DataverseNO strives to provide subject-specific expertise as far as possible; see R6, R8, and R11. This is why, as a main rule, data deposited into institutional collections or into the top-level collection of DataverseNO are curated by Research Data Service staff who are subject specialists in addition to be trained in research data management. Special collections of DataverseNO are without exception managed and curated by permanent Research Data Service staff who are specialists within the subject at stake.

References:
[1] DataverseNO Designated Community: https://site.uit.no/dataverseno/about/#designated-community
[2] TROLLing: https://info.trolling.uit.no