DaRUS, the University of Stuttgart's data repository, enables archiving, sharing, and publishing of research data, scripts, and codes. All published datasets are easily citable and reusable by the research community. However, the software integration of DaRUS has been difficult because the data format is cumbersome.
With SimTech's strong emphasis on software and data, seamless documentation integration is a must because automating data documentation makes experiments reproducible. Therefore, Jan Range, Research Data Software Engineer in SimTech, developed PyDaRUS and EasyDataverse. "In the beginning, the working title of the software was EasyDaRUS. That actually describes pretty well what my goal was with the software. In the end, I decided on the name "PyDaRUS" to clearly establish the link to Python," explains Jan Range.
PyDaRUS provides a Python environment that can be integrated into modern applications and facilitates the upload to DaRUS. Besides uploading, data can also be downloaded and synchronized with a data set (update function). It also provides import and export of data to various formats such as JSON, YAML and HDF5.
PyDaRUS is based on the EasyDataverse library, which was also developed by Jan Range. This is used to generate the code based on the metadata schema of DaRUS. That means as soon as something changes in DaRUS, the code is automatically synchronized.
PyDaRUS, as well as the basic EasyDataverse software, is now scheduled to be unveiled at the virtual Dataverse Community Meeting in mid-June (6/14-16). "EasyDataverse could be a real enrichment for the whole Dataverse community, because it was not written specifically for application examples of the University of Stuttgart, but can be applied to any Dataverse ", Jan Range underlines.
Currently, PyDaRUS and EasyDataverse are already being used in various SimTech projects as well as in projects of SFB 1333.
If you have any questions about concrete application examples or the software, please contact Jan Range.