Agility, Growth, and Cooperative Service Design: two teams building a data repository during times of change

In 2024, Princeton University launched new data repository services with the Princeton Data Commons. It spanned many challenges, including departmental restructures, new staff, and support for an existing critical service in brittle legacy architecture while developing a better way to support research data.

Rather than replacing one monolithic system with another, we reimagined a decoupled ecosystem of softwares serving the needs of researchers at each stage of their work, from ingestion through publication. Taking advantage of the best tools for research data management such as description using DataCite and managing permanent identifiers with DOIs, it gave us the opportunity to revisit data previously stored in a system not designed for it, and to create better repository objects in a hands-on review process. However, this project also represented a shift in user workflows established for nearly a decade, and presented new work in terms of non-automated data migration from the legacy system to the new one, a worthwhile challenge but one not often taken on in projects such as this.

We will discuss challenges and opportunities that come with building a data repository during periods of intense change, plans for user training, and the bright future that Princeton Data Commons presents.