IQSS
Feature Request/Idea: Create new Institutional Admin role in-between SuperAdmin and Admin for Institutional Collections Managers
Overview of the Feature Request This new role will be created for institutional collections administrators who oversee institutional collections in multi-institutional Dataverse installations. Increasingly the default 'Admin' role in DV is not quite sufficient for use for these collections administrators since they oversee a diverse collection which may include researcher's Dataverse Collections that have the Admin privileges assigned at the same level. Some issues that have arisen with Admin role is that there isn't any differentiation between the Institutional Admins and the regular researcher / depositor / collection Admins , which can cause conflict when individuals from the institutional admin group are removed from the Admin permissions of a Collection / and/or the institutional admins are not able to monitor those collections.
What kind of user is the feature intended for? Since this is new Admin role, this would be intended for institutionally appointed staff who oversee Dataverse services for their institutional collections.
What inspired the request? Many institutional admins request this feature in the Borealis multi-institutional installation setup because they require a level of permission to be able to oversee all collections and datasets for their institutional collection space in Borealis. Currently SuperAdmin is not given to anyone outside of the Borealis technical team.
What existing behavior do you want changed? Permissions and roles for Admin, to create new role in between SuperAdmin and Admin calling it 'InstitutionalAdmin'. This permission level does not currently exist in Dataverse for us to create it as a custom role.
Any brand new behavior do you want to add to Dataverse? Yes this new permission and role be added to the permissions options in DV and ability to assign to individual or group members who are institutional admins.
Any open or closed issues related to this feature request?
Hi Amber, it would be very interesting for us (Recherche Data Gouv 🇫🇷) too! Maybe we could organize a meeting &/or document to discuss on what the various multi-institutions installations would need :)
This would be good for the Texas Data Repository at TDL, as well. As we develop our retention policies, adjust curation procedures, and try to manage storage and larger data more precisely, our TDR liaisons will need more controls over their own institution's DV in the multi-institutional TDR.
2025-06-25
- @scolapasta adding to the Dataverse backlog column for upcoming review.
Having some kind of role for Insitutitional admins for consortium type installations makes complete sense. I think the first steps would be to get a sense of what this role would be able to do? (from the above I gather one aspect would be that a regular admin could not un assign this role from their collections, similar to how superusers cannot be unassigned.
(from a technical perspective, I wonder if it would make sene for this to be a regular role (and trying to figure out how that would work), or something more akin to the superuser, i.e. we ccould consider defining a superuser for a collection (also, have to consider how exactly that would work!).
So the first step, I think would at least be some examples of what kind of Actions (commands in the technical sense) this role would be able to do. (or as I stated above is is it really just about not being able to be unassigned).
Another consideration which could affect how we define this "role" is whether we need to also add something to certain dataverse collections to reflect that thet are insitutional collections within a larger installation (that could, for example, then be "registered" on our map of dataverse installations).
@amberleahey , @CCMumma @DS-INRAE please provide any feedback on the above thoughts.
This feature might be good for UNC too. We have external clients for our repository services. I could see the external institutions wanting this institutional admin role where they have more controls over their collections but not quite the Super Admin role.
Hi Gustavo, thanks for the feedback and sorry fo the delay! Here is our use case:
(from a technical perspective, I wonder if it would make sene for this to be a regular role (and trying to figure out how that would work), or something more akin to the superuser, i.e. we ccould consider defining a superuser for a collection (also, have to consider how exactly that would work!).
The only thing that would advocate for a regular role would be if duplicating this role to cutomize roles for specific institutional collections, but we don't have that need.
some examples of what kind of Actions (commands in the technical sense) this role would be able to do.
By order of priority
- Move datasets or dataverse collections within their institutional collection. 2. Duplicate datasets (not currently implemented in Dataverse)
- Edit embargoes on published datasets within their institutional collection.
- Access and ability to edit every dataset within their institutional collection for curation.
- Access to a dashboard with users from their organization to check their presence in the repository and know how they log in.
- Needs discussion : See unpublished dataverse collections in other institutional collections to avoid creating duplicates.
Another consideration which could affect how we define this "role" is whether we need to also add something to certain dataverse collections to reflect that thet are insitutional collections within a larger installation (that could, for example, then be "registered" on our map of dataverse installations).
We currently address this need using
- featured dataverse collections
- our website https://recherche.data.gouv.fr/en/institutions institutional collections
I am not sure about the need to be on the Dataverse map for the institution (fyi we do have a map, but for user-support "centers"/"clusters" rather than institutions that are part of the repository: https://recherche.data.gouv.fr/en/data-workshops), but that could always be interesting for higher visibility (it would be great for Dataverse to display these numerous institutions though). So not sure this would be a priority for us at the moment, but definitively something that would be interesting to discuss for the longer run
One question I have on this is whether there is anything a superuser can do that this new "institutional admin" should not be able to do within their collections. (Like Gustavo, I'm trying to figure out whether this is more like a new role, or something more like "superuser wherever you have the Admin role". The latter might be easier to implement, but it might not be straight forward if there are many actions on a collection or dataset that a superuser should be able to but an "institutional admin" shouldn't.)
