Data Versioning Interest Group Compilation of Data Versioning Use Cases

Data versioning is a fundamental element to ensuring the reproducibility of research. Work in other Research Data Alliance (RDA) groups on data provenance and data citation, as well as the W3C Dataset Exchange Working Group (DXWG), have highlighted that definitions of data versioning concepts and recommended practices are still missing.

An important driver to more closely examine data versioning practices came from the work of the RDA Working Group (WG) on Data Citation, whose final report recognised the need for systematic data versioning practices. However, while the recommendations put forward by the RDA WG on Data Citation are well suited for relational databases that are accessed using database queries, the recommendations sparked a debate that highlighted the need for more general principles on data versioning and a clarification of the terminology used to describe versioning of data. This led to the formation of the RDA Working Group on Data Versioning. An early requirement for the new WG was to capture use cases where versioning requirements could not be met by the RDA WG on Data Citation recommendations. Numerous organisations and individuals were approached, or offered to contribute use cases.

During the active phase of the RDA Data Versioning Working Group, 39 use cases from about 33 organisations representing different domains and data types were documented in V1.1, published 6 April 2020.

After the Working Group transitioned to the Interest Group in 2021, a further 18 additional use cases were colleced and documented in V1.3, bringing the total to 57 use cases.