Dataset Guestbooks

Dataset Guestbooks

One of the unique features of UNC Dataverse is the Guestbook. Admin can create a custom guestbook that tracks user information including name, institution, files downloaded, and reason for accessing these downloads. This information can be populated in a Guestbook Report that can be viewed in the UNC Dataverse interface or can be downloaded as a CSV. Tracking these metrics helps researchers and funding agencies recognize the value of sharing their data, which data are most popular, and why others may be interested in reusing their data for their own research.

Guestbook tutorial video

Create Guestbook

To create a Guestbook, login to UNC Dataverse and navigate to your project dataverse. Click ‘Edit’ on the far right of the page and select 'Dataset Guestbooks’ from the dropdown menu. Click on 'Create Dataset Guestbook’.

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First, enter a name for your guestbook in the Guestbook Name field. Under Data Collected, use the checkboxes to make any or all of those fields ‘required’. If you would like to include additional, custom questions, select the Question Type under the Custom Questions section. Enter your Question Text into the field and use the checkbox to mark that field as ‘required’. If you need additional custom questions, use the + button to add more. Once you’ve completed customizing your guestbook, click on ‘Create Dataset Guestbook’.

Your new guestbook will appear in a list on the Dataset Guestbooks page. It will display the name of the guestbook, the date created, how many datasets have this guestbook enabled, the number of responses to the guestbook, as well as ways to view, copy, edit, or delete the guestbook.

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Enable/Disable Guestbook

Creating a guestbook is the first step in tracking usage statistics for your data. The second step is to enable the guestbook on your datasets. To do this, navigate to the dataset you wish to include a guestbook on. Select ‘Edit Dataset’ on the right of the dataset page and choose ‘Terms’ from the drop-down menu. Scroll to the bottom of the Terms page until you reach the Guestbook section. Select the guestbook you wish to enable. Click ‘Save Changes’ at the bottom of the page.

Any user downloading or exploring files within this dataset will be prompted to fill in the dataset guestbook first. UNC Dataverse will automatically populate user account information within the guestbook; however, users may include additional information as well.

If you need to disable a guestbook, navigate back to the dataset, and select ‘Edit Dataset’, then ‘Terms’. Scroll to the bottom of the Terms page to the Guestbook section and click the ‘Clear Selection’ button to deselect the guestbook. Save changes and the guestbook will no longer be enabled for that dataset.

Generate a Guestbook Report

When a guestbook is enabled for a dataset record, Dataverse tracks user downloads and data explorations of the files within that record. These metrics can be viewed within the UNC Dataverse platform and exported as a spreadsheet.

To view Guestbook entries, login to your project dataverse. Click on ‘Edit’ on the far right of the page and select ‘Dataset Guestbooks’ from the drop-down menu. You will see a list of your guestbooks with usage statistics for each guestbook.

Click on ‘View Responses’ to see all user downloads and data explorations for your enabled guestbook. Dataverse automatically tracks user information such as name and affiliation. It will also record the exact file(s) downloaded and/or viewed along with the date these files were accessed.

To download the responses into a CSV spreadsheet, click the ‘Download All Responses’ button above the table.