Dash: data sharing made easy

To facilitate data sharing from within the University of California system and beyond, the University of California Curation Center (UC3) is developing a new ingest and discovery layer for our data curation service, Dash. Dash uses the Merritt repository for preservation and a self-service overlay layer for submission and discovery of research datasets. The new overlay– dubbed Stash (STore And SHare)– will feature an enhanced user interface with a simple and intuitive deposit workflow, while still accommodating rich metadata. Stash will enable individual scholars to upload data through local file browse or drag-and-drop operation; describe data in terms of scientifically-meaning metadata, including methods, references, and geospatial information; identify datasets for persistent citation and retrieval; preserve and share data in an appropriate repository; and discover, retrieve, and reuse data through faceted search and browse. Stash can be implemented in conjunction with any standards-compliant repository that supports the SWORD protocol for deposit and the OAI-PMH protocol for metadata harvesting. Stash will feature native support for the DataCite or Dublin Core metadata schemas, but is designed to accommodate other schemas to support  discipline-specific applications. By alleviating many of the barriers that have historically precluded wider adoption of open data principles, Stash empowers individual scholars to assert active curation control over their research outputs; encourages more widespread data preservation, publication, sharing, and reuse; and promotes open scholarly inquiry and advancement.