Project progress

Documented, reviewable work in progress.

This section organizes progress reports, demonstration sites and infographics that make it possible to review the project’s work. Each item identifies its scope, status and next steps, distinguishing verifiable progress from the objectives planned for 2028.

Overall report for the period

Executive report · January–July 2026

Provides an integrated view of the project’s progress and explains the relationship among regional coverage, multilingual discovery, persistent identifiers, research data and training.

Read the executive report

Latest public release · August 2026

Reports, evidence and product pages in one place.

The January–July reports are available for review. The product cards below identify what can be consulted now and what is still being completed, so that current progress and public-facing narratives remain clearly distinguished.

Available nowExecutive, component and technical reports; all four Component A products; the dARK B1 and B2 infographics; Dataverse Alpha C1; and the launched C2 course.

In progressNew evidence and links for products that remain in development.

Component A

Coverage, quality and visibility

Advances the expansion of regional coverage through new sources and countries, improves and normalizes metadata, and enables discovery of the region’s research outputs through a multilingual semantic search engine.

4 published

Component report Component A progress report Regional expansion, metadata quality, multilingual model evaluation, semantic search, and publishing and protection infrastructure. Read the full report

Products from the periodRelated demos, infographics and technical reports

INFOGRAPHIC A1Published

Regional expansion and coverageExplains how COAR IRD, ROR, national systems and direct work with organizations expand coverage across member and non-member countries.

View infographic →View report

DEMO A2Published

Multilingual semantic searchExplains how search by meaning complements word-based retrieval and lets visitors try queries in seven languages over the LA Referencia collection.

View demo View report

DEMO A3Published

Selective protection against bots and scrapingExplains the solution using Anubis and Nginx Proxy Manager to distinguish authorized scholarly services, identified scrapers and conventional browsers.

View demo View report

INFOGRAPHIC A4Published

Selecting a model for multilingual semantic searchExplains what an embedding model is, how the alternatives were evaluated, and why BGE-M3 was selected for the first implementation.

View infographic →View report

Component B

Persistent identification, metadata preservation and sovereignty

Develops regional, sovereign and sustainable infrastructure for persistent identifiers and metadata preservation, governed as a public good without dependence on a central commercial entity.

2 published

Component report Component B progress report The evolution of dARK 2.0, ARK publication and resolution, harvester integration and the transition toward distributed infrastructure. Read the full report

Products from the periodRelated demos, infographics and technical reports

INFOGRAPHIC B1Published

dARK: persistent identifiers as a regional public goodExplains the challenge, the ARK scheme, and the decentralized conceptual model that the project is building in the region.

View infographic →View report

INFOGRAPHIC B2Published

dARK 2.0: technical architecture and multi-site operationExplains the minting and resolution cycle, APIs, blockchain, IPFS, and the model of distributed infrastructure across sites.

View infographic →View report

Component C

Infrastructure and training for research data

Builds a regional research data repository based on Dataverse and shares support, documentation, training and curation practices to strengthen capacities across the region.

2 published

Component report Component C progress report Regional assessment, Dataverse Alpha, support capacity and the research data management and curation training program. Read the full report

Products from the periodRelated demos, courses and technical reports

DEMO C1Published

Regional Dataverse AlphaThe LA Referencia Alpha environment is operational. The page documents the baseline, authorized examples, training and upcoming pilots to build regional capacity.

View page →View report

COURSE C2Course launched

Introduction to data management and curation in DataverseThe first cohort began on 24 August 2026. The 16-hour asynchronous MOOC releases four modules progressively and connects training with practice in Dataverse Alpha.

View course and progress →View report