Post by Mrudula Ravada, Research Data Manager in USF Libraries’ Integrated Research and Impact Services department
USF Libraries’ Integrated Research & Impact Services (IRIS) team is excited to share a recent improvement to how institution names are managed in Digital Commons Data.
What’s changing?
Digital Commons Data has updated its institution lookup service. Institution information is now sourced from the Research Organization Registry (ROR), an open and globally recognized registry of research organizations.
Previously, Digital Commons Data relied on Ringgold, a proprietary service. The shift to ROR improves transparency and interoperability across systems used for research data discovery and indexing.
What’s not changing?
The good news: The workflow stays the same. You will continue to search for and select institutions in the same places as before (including within dataset records and contributor information).
What you may notice
As part of this update, the institution field now displays more information once selected—similar to how the funder field works. You may now see:
- Location information (helpful when organizations share similar names across countries)
- A direct link to the institution’s ROR page, which provides additional public information about the organization
These enhancements are designed to support more accurate selection and reduce ambiguity when entering metadata.
Why these matters
ROR is a free and open service, which means institution metadata is more accessible to:
- researchers
- repository users
- indexing services
- other data platforms
This update also supports FAIR data practices—making datasets easier to find, understand, and reuse across systems. It aligns with metadata recommendations from the NIH Generalist Repository Ecosystem Initiative (GREI). For more details, see GREI’s metadata recommendations, which encourages the use of open, standardized identifiers like ROR.
This change is also part of NIH’s broader efforts to improve access to research data, as outlined in their new data access initiative.
New option: Default institution
Digital Commons Data can now set a default institution for our repository. This means that when USF users create a dataset, our institution may already be pre-filled—saving time and improving consistency.
Questions?
If you have questions about this change or notice anything unexpected when entering institution metadata, please reach out to the USF Libraries’ Research Data team at usflibraries-datamgmt@usf.edu.