What is York University Dataverse?
- The York University Dataverse, a member of Borealis: The Canadian Dataverse Repository, is York’s institutional data repository.
- York University faculty, students and staff can deposit data for free in the repository.
- Borealis allows for data to be stored on Canadian servers, released with a Digital Object Identifier (DOI), and discoverable through multiple tools, such as Lunaris and Google Dataset.
Getting Help
- Email yul_rdm@yorku.ca to book a consultation or receive email support from the Libraries’ research data management team.
Since the early 2010s, the Scholars Portal Dataverse network supported by the Ontario Council of University Libraries, has served as a repository for research data collected by individuals and organizations at Ontario universities. In June 2022, this regional service became Borealis, the Canadian Dataverse Repository / le dépôt Dataverse canadien , a shared national service with technical infrastructure hosted by Scholars Portal and the University of Toronto Libraries.
As the name evokes connections to the Canadian landscape, this new national service reflects the growth of research data management and expanding partnerships with Canadian regional academic library consortia, institutions, research organizations, and the Digital Research Alliance of Canada. Borealis supports open discovery, management, sharing, and preservation of Canadian research data.
York University Dataverse is part of this growing Borealis network and functions as a dedicated research data repository for York University researchers. The Borealis team is responsible for setting up institutional and organizational collections in the repository. The Research Data Management (RDM) team at York University Libraries (YUL) provides data curation and user support and serves as local institutional and organizational collection managers. You can contact the RDM team at YUL at: yul_rdm@yorku.ca.
The data deposit workflow in York University Dataverse is semi-mediated to help ensure submitted datasets align with the FAIR principles. To deposit data, researcher(s) need to do the following:
- Create your own Dataverse account using the institutional login and authentication option.
- Email the Libraries’ Research Data Management (RDM) team at yul_rdm@yorku.ca and request that the team creates a Dataverse for your dataset.
- The RDM team will assign a contributor role to the requesting researcher.
- The researcher can then create a dataset under their Dataverse, upload data files, and add metadata.
- Once the researcher is ready, they can click the “Submit for Review” button on the dataset draft page to submit a dataset for review.
- The RDM team will receive a notification that a dataset has been submitted. The team will review and check the deposited data files and metadata and provide a curation report with recommendations to the researcher.
- Based on the curation report, the researcher can modify their data files and metadata.
- Once the feedback from the curation report is addressed, the researcher can re-submit their dataset. The RDM team will then publish the dataset, at which time it will be available publicly, and its DOI will be registered and active.
- The semi-mediated curation process takes between 3-5 business days to complete.
The length of the data curation period depends on the number of submissions and the completeness of metadata and documentation in your submitted dataset. The Libraries’ Research Data Management (RDM) team aims to review and provide a curation report within 3-5 business days.
Please contact yul_rdm@yorku.ca if you need an expedited curation review. Following the resubmission of your dataset, it will take 1-2 business days for the final publication of the dataset.
The Libraries’ Research Data Management (RDM) team are the administrators of York University Dataverse, including all Dataverses and datasets created under York University Dataverse. The RDM team consists of research data management librarians and library staff. Please email yul_rdm@yorku.ca if you have any questions about York University Dataverse.
Research team members can be assigned different roles within a Dataverse. Generally, researchers will be assigned the “Contributor Plus” role for their Dataverse. This role enables researchers to:
- create datasets under their Dataverse(s)
- delete dataset drafts
- edit and view datasets, including the license and terms
- upload and download files
- submit datasets to the York University Dataverse administrators
Contributors cannot publish datasets directly. The York University Dataverse follows a semi-mediated data curation process that allows the Libraries’ Research Data Management team to help enhance the quality of the metadata and datasets before publication.
Yes! Each user must have their own Borealis account tied to their institutional account or email address. Roles can then be assigned to individual accounts for better privacy practices. It is not recommended that a research team uses one account to submit datasets to their Dataverse.
Yes. York University affiliated researchers will need to create a Borealis account and email a request to the Libraries’ Research Data Management (RDM) team at yul_rdm@yorku.ca to set up their Dataverse(s). The York affiliated researcher will be the main contact person of the Dataverse(s). Additional team members can be added as contributors to the Dataverse(s) once they have registered for a Borealis account with a non-YorkU email address.
A Dataverse can be thought of as a digital collection for the datasets. For example, they can be created for individual researchers, research groups, labs, or departments. A Dataverse can have sub-Dataverses and multiple datasets. A dataset is a container of data files, documentation, and their metadata.
To request a Dataverse under York University Dataverse, please sign up for a Borealis account and then contact yul_rdm@yorku.ca.
York University Dataverse accepts research data that are created or co-created by York University faculty, graduate students, staff, librarians, and affiliated researchers and research groups. Researchers should only deposit final datasets meant for open access sharing and publication. Submitted datasets should follow best practices in research data management (RDM), such as including data documentation like a ReadMe file.
York University Dataverse is primarily a platform for publishing and sharing datasets appropriate for open access sharing. It is not appropriate for the storage of highly sensitive or confidential data. Datasets must not contain information that could directly or indirectly identify a subject, except where the release of such identifying information has no potential for constituting an unwarranted invasion of privacy and/or breach of confidentiality.
Borealis supports a wide range of data types and formats. Single data file size limit for deposits in Borealis is 5GB. Researchers interested in depositing large file size data sets are invited to discuss their options by consulting the Libraries’ Research Data Management (RDM) team at yul_rdm@yorku.ca. The RDM team may also refer researchers with large datasets to other data repositories such as the national Federated Research Data Repository (FRDR). To learn more about FRDR, please review the terms of their data submission policy.
In York University Dataverse, all published datasets will receive a DOI (Digital Object Identifier). This is a persistent, stable link that makes it easy to share and cite data. At the top of each dataset page, there is an automatically generated citation that can be copied and used to reference the data. The citation includes the author(s), year, dataset title, the hyperlinked DOI, the name of the repository (Borealis), the dataset’s version number, and the UNF (universal numerical fingerprint).
When citing or sharing data, the DOI should always be used for linking to datasets because it is the unique, persistent digital identifier assigned to the dataset. The DOI will not change even if URL changes. It is highly recommended that researchers check, update, and replace URLs to their datasets with DOIs.
Research data files and metadata made available through the York University Dataverse will generally be retained for the lifetime of the repository as per the level 1 preservation activities described in the Borealis preservation plan.
Date Last Updated: July 2026