jggautier
commented
5 years ago I wonder if it might be safe to never use "Closed Access", use "Restricted Access" for datasets that have restricted files, and use "Open Access" for all other datasets. Does anyone ever publish datasets whose files can't be accessed at all?
If so, it might help if Dataverse allows depositors to indicate, in a standardized and machine-readable way, that access to restricted files can be requested (even if people need to request access outside of Dataverse's request access feature) or cannot be requested through any means
cmbz
philippconzett
pdurbin
As part of v4.14 (released in May 2019), Dataverse makes available through the UI, API and over OAI-PMH DataCite metadata that complies with OpenAIRE requirements (https://github.com/IQSS/dataverse/issues/4257). Repositories need to follow these requirements in order for their dataset metadata to be made discoverable in OpenAIRE EXPLORE.
The required metadata export called OpenAIRE (in the Dataverse UI) or oai_datacite (over API and OAI-PMH) includes one of four Access Rights terms, which come from the info:eu-repo-Access-Terms vocabulary:
Dataverse chooses these terms based on whether or not any dataset files are set to restricted and whether or not people are able to request access to those restricted files using Dataverse's request access feature:
There are datasets in Dataverse repositories whose files are set to restricted, and people cannot request access through Dataverse's request access feature. The OpenAIRE metadata export for these datasets uses closedAccess, even when the dataset metadata indicates that people can request access by some process that happens outside of Dataverse's request access feature, e.g. submitting a DUA or contacting the author.
This dataset has restricted files and people aren't able to request access through Dataverse's request access feature, so its OpenAIRE metadata indicates that the dataset is closed access. But people are able to request access by filling out a form (Application For The Use of Data), so the dataset isn't really closed access.
When these datasets are harvested by OpenAIRE, because the metadata says they're closedAccess they'll appear and be searchable as closedAccess, grouped with datasets that are more appropriately labelled closedAccess, even though file access is only restricted. This may make these datasets harder to find and use, making OpenAIRE EXPLORE less effective for finding datasets published by Dataverse repositories.
We can think of better ways for Dataverse to assign rights access terms in ways that the Dataverse community thinks are more appropriate (e.g. Zenodo depositors choose from a drop-down menu). But other data publishers are using these rights access terms (or those terms are being applied to the harvested datasets) in a variety of ways that can make using the Access Rights filters unhelpful for searching through OpenAIRE EXPLORE. "Open data" already means many different things to different groups. Since these Access Rights terms are used for the benefit of finding data in OpenAIRE EXPLORE, the scope of this issue might involve learning how OpenAIRE might want to improve the definitions and how repositories can use them in more standardized ways.