Metadata Export will allow for federation and interoperability with other systems to help make Dataverse more widely and easily discoverable. Another key function of the export is not only to share metadata but to store it in the file system in a preservation format.

Harvesting allows the metadata from datasets from another site to be imported so they appear to be local, though data files remain on the remote site. This makes it possible to access content from data repositories and other sites with interesting content as long as they support the protocols Dataverse uses. Additionally, harvesting allows for Dataverse installations and other repositories to share metadata with each other to create a data sharing community and provide more access to the datasets stored in each repository.