Introduction

Welcome! The Dataverse Project is an open source project that loves contributors!

Intended Audience

This guide is intended primarily for developers who want to work on the main Dataverse Software code base at https://github.com/IQSS/dataverse but see “Related Projects” below for other code you can work on!

To get started, you’ll want to set up your Development Environment and make sure you understand the branching strategy described in the Version Control section and how to make a pull request. Testing is expected. Opinions about Coding Style are welcome!

Getting Help

If you have any questions at all, please reach out to other developers via the channels listed in https://github.com/IQSS/dataverse/blob/develop/CONTRIBUTING.md such as https://chat.dataverse.org, the dataverse-dev mailing list, community calls, or support@dataverse.org.

Core Technologies

The Dataverse Software is a Jakarta EE application that is compiled into a WAR file and deployed to an application server (app server) which is configured to work with a relational database (PostgreSQL) and a search engine (Solr).

We make use of a variety of Jakarta EE technologies such as JPA, JAX-RS, JMS, and JSF. The front end is built using PrimeFaces and Bootstrap.

In addition, we start to adopt parts of Eclipse MicroProfile, namely MicroProfile Config.

Roadmap

For the Dataverse Software development roadmap, please see https://www.iq.harvard.edu/roadmap-dataverse-project

Kanban Board

You can get a sense of what’s currently in flight (in dev, in QA, etc.) by looking at https://github.com/orgs/IQSS/projects/34

Issue Tracker

We use GitHub Issues as our issue tracker: https://github.com/IQSS/dataverse/issues

Related Guides

If you are a developer who wants to make use of the Dataverse Software APIs, please see the API Guide. If you have front-end UI questions, please see the Style Guide.

If you are a sysadmin who likes to code, you may be interested in hacking on installation scripts mentioned in the Installation Guide.

If you are a Docker enthusiasts, please check out the Container Guide.

Related Projects

As a developer, you also may be interested in these projects related to Dataverse:

• External Tools - add additional features to the Dataverse Software without modifying the core: Building External Tools

• Dataverse Software API client libraries - use Dataverse Software APIs from various languages: Client Libraries

• DVUploader - a stand-alone command-line Java application that uses the Dataverse Software API to support upload of files from local disk to a Dataset: https://github.com/IQSS/dataverse-uploader

• dataverse-sample-data - populate your Dataverse installation with sample data: https://github.com/IQSS/dataverse-sample-data

• dataverse-metrics - aggregate and visualize metrics for Dataverse installations around the world: https://github.com/IQSS/dataverse-metrics

• Configuration management scripts - Ansible, Puppet, etc.: See Advanced Installation section in the Installation Guide.

• Universal Numerical Fingerprint (UNF) (Java) - a Universal Numerical Fingerprint: https://github.com/IQSS/UNF

• DataTags (Java and Scala) - tag datasets with privacy levels: https://github.com/IQSS/DataTags

• Matrix - a visualization showing the connectedness and collaboration between authors and their affiliations.

• Third party apps - make use of Dataverse installation APIs: Apps

• chat.dataverse.org - chat interface for Dataverse Project users and developers: https://github.com/IQSS/chat.dataverse.org

• [Your project here] :)