Investigate Anonymous Review feature for use on Harvard Dataverse Repository

[kmika11]

Version 5.6 includes a feature to generate a Private URL that allows a user to “Create URL for Anonymized Access” for a dataset (https://guides.dataverse.org/en/5.6/user/dataset-management.html#private-url-for-reviewing-an-unpublished-dataset). To enable that feature we need a list of metadata fields to "hide." The Demo server is already updated to 5.6 and could be a good place to test once we have a list of fields drafted.

[kmika11]

List of metadata fields to anonymize: author, authorName, authorAffiliation, authorIdentifier, datasetContact, datasetContactName, datasetContactAffiliation, publication, publicationCitation, publicationIDNumber, publicationURL, producer, producerName, producerAffiliation, producerAbbreviation, producerURL, producerLogoURL, contributor, contributorName, grantNumber, grantNumberAgency, grantNumberValue, distributor, distributorName, distributorAffiliation, distributorAbbreviation, distributorURL, distributorLogoURL, depositor, relatedMaterial, relatedDatasets, otherReferences, dataCollector, astroFacility.

Turns out there's a lot of ways to identify a creator! The complete list is also available here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_87zwn6WkHY242a3tmyKvMTyUgyMzTj7itoP7QcbLHc/edit#gid=0

[djbrooke]

Retitled this, and moving this over to in progress. Thanks @jggautier for spinning up the local instance to allow for investigation of this feature.

[jggautier]

Opened Github issue at IQSS/dataverse#8158 about author names still viewable in dataset page source code.

[jggautier]

There are two remaining pieces of feedback from the curation team's review:

1. Information about the installation and about the Dataverse collection that the dataset is in could help reveal the dataset author's identity to the dataset reviewer.

   Information about the repository housing the dataset:

   The anonymous private URL page shows the name of the Dataverse repository/installation that the dataset is in and the reviewer can navigate around the website to find more information about the repository/installation. For the Harvard Dataverse Repository, this won't be a problem since anyone can use the repository, so a reviewer shouldn't be able to figure out who the author might be only by knowing that the dataset is in the Harvard Dataverse Repository.

   But this could be an issue for Dataverse repositories with a more narrow/focused audience, like the repositories that only allow researches affiliated with a certain institution to deposit datasets.

   Information about the Dataverse collection housing the dataset:

   The anonymous private URL page shows the name of the Dataverse Collection that the dataset is in, even if the Dataverse Collection is unpublished. This feature was meant mostly for "Journal Dataverse Collections," (Allow For Anonymous Peer Review of a Dataset for Journals dataverse#1724) so we should expect that the reviewer would already know, before ever visiting the anonymous private URL page, that the dataset is associated with a particular journal.

   But outside of the journal use-case, information about the Dataverse Collection, like the name or description, could help identify the dataset author. This point was also brought up in two comments (1, 2) in the original GitHub issue.

2. Some researchers were unsure of the difference between the "Private URL" and the "Anonymous Private URL"

   Researchers that @kmika11 spoke with were unsure about the difference between the "Private URL" and the "Anonymous Private URL". In particular, one or more researchers weren't sure if the feature would let them share an anonymized version of the data in a dataset's data files.

I'll open two GitHub issues for both of these pieces of feedback.

[TaniaSchlatter]

Nice work, @jggautier and @kmika11!

[jggautier]

Thanks! The two issues have been created at IQSS/dataverse#8184 and IQSS/dataverse#8185. @djbrooke I agree this issue can be closed. What do you think @kmika11?

[kmika11]

Thanks all! Yes, @jggautier I agree this can be closed.