DOI: 10.7910/dvn/rmagsh
title: Dataset metadata of known Dataverse installations, August 2025

description: &lt;p&gt;This dataset contains the metadata of the datasets published in 118 Dataverse installations, information about the metadata blocks of 118 installations, and the lists of pre-defined licenses or dataset terms that depositors can apply to datasets in the 100 installations that were running versions of the Dataverse software that include the "multiple-license" feature.

&lt;p&gt;The data is useful for improving understandings about how certain Dataverse features and metadata fields are used and for learning about the quality of dataset and file-level metadata within and across Dataverse installations.

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;How the metadata was downloaded&lt;/strong&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The dataset metadata and metadata block JSON files were downloaded from each installation between August 25 and September 2, 2025 using a Python script that uses the Dataverse API.

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;How the files are organized&lt;/strong&gt;

&lt;pre&gt;
├── csv_files_with_metadata_from_most_known_dataverse_installations
│ ├── author(citation)_2025.08.25-2025.09.02.csv
│ ├── contributor(citation)_2025.08.25-2025.09.02.csv
│ ├── data_source(citation)_2025.08.25-2025.09.02.csv
│ ├── ...
│ └── topic_classification(citation)_2025.08.25-2025.09.02.csv
├── dataverse_json_metadata_from_each_known_dataverse_installation
│ ├── Abacus_2025.08.26_07.14.00.zip
│ ├── dataset_pids_Abacus_2025.08.26_07.14.00.csv
│ ├── Dataverse_JSON_metadata_2025.08.26_07.14.00
│ ├── hdl_11272.1_AB2_0AQZNT_v1.0(latest_version).json
│ ├── ...
│ ├── metadatablocks_v5.9
│ ├── astrophysics_v5.9.json
│ ├── biomedical_v5.9.json
│ ├── citation_v5.9.json
│ ├── ...
│ ├── socialscience_v5.6.json
│ ├── ACSS_Dataverse_2025.08.25_15.45.25.zip
│ ├── ...
│ └── Yale_Dataverse_2025.08.25_11.51.29.zip
└── dataverse_installations_summary_2025.09.02.csv
└── dataset_pids_from_most_known_dataverse_installations_2025.08.25-2025.09.02.csv
└── license_options_for_each_dataverse_installation_2025.08.29_14.58.36.csv
└── metadatablocks_from_most_known_dataverse_installations_2025.08.29.csv
&lt;/pre&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This dataset contains two directories and four CSV files not in a directory.
&lt;p&gt;One directory, "csv_files_with_metadata_from_most_known_dataverse_installations", contains 20 CSV files that list the values of many of the metadata fields in the "Citation" metadata block and "Geospatial" metadata block of datasets in the 118 Dataverse installations. For example, author(citation)_2025.08.25-2025.09.02.csv contains the "Author" metadata for the latest versions of all published, non-deaccessioned datasets in 118 installations, with a column for each of the four child fields: author name, affiliation, identifier type, and identifier.
&lt;p&gt;The other directory, "dataverse_json_metadata_from_each_known_dataverse_installation", contains 118 zip files, one zip file for each of the 118 Dataverse installations whose sites were functioning when I attempted to collect their metadata and that have at least one published dataset. Each zip file contains:
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;A CSV file listing information about the datasets published in the installation, including a column to indicate if the Python script was able to download the Dataverse JSON metadata for each dataset.
&lt;li&gt; A directory with JSON files that have information about the installation's metadata fields, such as the field names and how they're organized.
&lt;li&gt;A directory of JSON files that contain the metadata of the installation's published, non-deaccessioned dataset versions in the Dataverse JSON metadata schema.
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The dataverse_installations_summary_2025.09.02.csv file contains information about each installation, including its name, URL, Dataverse software version, and counts of dataset metadata included and not included in this dataset.
&lt;p&gt;The dataset_pids_from_most_known_dataverse_installations_2025.08.25-2025.09.02.csv file contains the dataset PIDs of published datasets in 118 Dataverse installations, with a column to indicate if the Python script was able to download the dataset's metadata. It's a union of all "dataset_pids_....csv" files in each of the 118 zip files in the dataverse_json_metadata_from_each_known_dataverse_installation directory.
&lt;p&gt;The license_options_for_each_dataverse_installation_2025.08.29_14.58.36.csv file contains information about the licenses and data use agreements that some installations let depositors choose when creating datasets. When I collected this data, 100 of the available 118 installations were running versions of the Dataverse software that allow depositors to choose a "predefined license or data use agreement" from a dropdown menu in the dataset deposit form. For more information about this Dataverse feature, see &lt;a href="https://guides.dataverse.org/en/6.7/user/dataset-management.html#choosing-a-license"&gt;https://guides.dataverse.org/en/6.7/user/dataset-management.html#choosing-a-license&lt;/a&gt;.
&lt;p&gt;The metadatablocks_from_most_known_dataverse_installations_2025.08.29.csv file contains the metadata block names, field names, child field names (if the field is a compound field), display names, descriptions/tooltip text, watermarks, and controlled vocabulary values of fields in the 118 Dataverse installations' metadata blocks. This file is useful for learning about the metadata fields and field structures used in each installation.

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Known errors&lt;/strong&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The metadata of a few datasets from several known and functioning installations could not be downloaded.
&lt;p&gt;In some cases, this is because of download timeouts caused by the datasets' relatively large metadata exports, which contain information about the datasets' large number of versions and files.
&lt;p&gt;In other cases, datasets were publicly findable in the installations' Search API results, but in unpublished or deaccessioned states that prevented me from downloading their metadata export.

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;About metadata blocks&lt;/strong&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Read about the Dataverse software's metadata blocks system at &lt;a href="http://guides.dataverse.org/en/latest/admin/metadatacustomization.html"&gt;http://guides.dataverse.org/en/6.7/admin/metadatacustomization.html&lt;/a&gt;
description: Python, 3.13.7
description: Version 1 of this dataset includes the metadata of only the last 10 published versions of datasets published in Harvard Dataverse, due to a bug described in https://github.com/IQSS/dataverse.harvard.edu/issues/397. When the metadata was collected in late August 2025, there were 309 datasets with more than 10 published, non-deaccessioned versions. Version 2 of this dataset replaces Harvard_Dataverse_2025.08.30_09.19.25.zip with a zip file that includes all published, non-deaccessioned versions of those 309 datasets.

Version 2 also adds the dataverse_installations_summary_2025.09.02 tabular file, which I forgot to add in version 1.

This dataset does not include metadata from the repositories ODISSEI Portal and RODBUK, since all datasets indexed in those two repositories were published in other repositories. The purpose of ODISSEI Portal and RODBUK is to help others find data published in other repositories.