Yoda

What is it?

Yoda is an application for institutions that supports Research Data Management (RDM) throughout the entire research cycle: from the safe and easy storage and sharing of data during the research process, to the sharing of data within research collaborations and ultimately to research data archiving and publication.

Yoda helps the researcher make their data “FAIR” by providing a solution that enables data discovery and sharing (i.e., findable, accessible). In addition, it facilitates the use of metadata, contributing to data interoperability and reusability. Yoda provides a platform for the implementation of standard workflows that can ensure metadata quality satisfying VU policy requirements for data archiving and publication. In addition, Yoda is built on iRODS so it accommodates both researchers with data heavy requirements, as well as those seeking an accessible, user-friendly solution.

Yoda presents researchers a comfortable, easy-to-use solution for securely storing, sharing and organising their research data that follows the internationally adopted FAIR data principles. Many research institutions and funding organisations (such as NWO and ZonMw) require researchers to make their data FAIR.

Project space in Yoda is basically a folder with group based access rights. Access restrictions are only set on the top level, meaning you need one Project Space per research project.

Yoda is open source software developed and maintained by Utrecht University for the Yoda Consortium (VU, Wageningen University, Erasmus University, Amsterdam UMC, Utrecht University and SURF). Yoda is hosted by SURF in their Amsterdam datacentre.

What can it be used for?

The particular strength of Yoda lies in the fact that it is an all-in-one solution for managing your data during and after your project. It makes it easy to share and organise your data and add descriptive metadata at any moment. If (part of) your datasets needs to be published during or after your project, this can be done by a few simple steps within Yoda itself. There is no need to upload your data to another platform.

Data storage

Yoda is a Cloud storage solution that can be used for small to very large datasets. The underlying iRODS software ensures data integrity. Data in Yoda is backed up daily.

Data sharing

Once a new Yoda group has been created you can invite collaborators yourself. Researchers from national and international research institutes can login with their institutional account via SURF Research Access Management (SRAM). Collaborators from non-research institutes can create a free EduID NL account.

Sensitive data

The use of Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) with SRAM and hosting at SURF ensure, among other things, Yoda is suitable for the storage and sharing of data that score High on confidentiality in a data classification (see the Policy Classification of Research Data and the Research Data Classification Tool). Please make sure to contact the RDM Support Desk to check if further measures are needed.

Metadata

At any moment you can add descriptive metadata to a folder in Yoda via a web form. This means you can easily organize your data in such a way that it is not only ready for archiving and publishing but also findable for your collaborators.

Archiving

At any moment you can submit a data folder with metadata for Archiving in the Yoda Vault. Data in the Vault is read-only and cannot be deleted. To help make sure the dataset is suitable for archiving a Yoda datamanager (usually a data manager from your department or a faculty data steward) will review your submission before final approval. Data in the Vault is directly accessible for your collaborators. Access for the Yoda datamanager role ensures the data remains accessible on the long term.

Publishing metadata and data

From the Yoda Vault you can submit the dataset for publication. A DOI will be generated and registered with DataCite together with the metadata. DataCite ensures your dataset becomes findable on the internet and citable.

The DOI link will lead to a landing page in Yoda showing the metadata. The dataset itself can be Open, allowing direct download, Restricted, meaning other researchers need to follow a data request procedure, or Closed, signalling the dataset is properly archived but not available for reuse.

Automated workflows

Since Yoda is build on iRODS you could also build (automated) ingest and analysis workflows using iRODS Rules and Policies. Please contact IT for Research if you need assistance.

How to request access

Yoda is available for every VU researcher. If you need space to store data for your research project, you can request it via the linked form.

Once the project space has been created you can start to invite your collaborators yourself. Note that VU students must 🔒 connect a token to SURFsecureID to be able to log in.

Are there costs involved?

The costs of storing data in Yoda are detailed on the 🔒 VU website.

Getting Started

The VU Yoda website has practical information on the use of the Yoda for users starting with Yoda.

More information can be found on the SURF User Knowledge base.

The Yoda site of Utrecht University also contains useful information and is being redeveloped so it can also be used by VU Amsterdam and the other Consortium Partners.

Contact

Wondering if Yoda fits your research needs? Please contact the RDM support desk.