1. A computerized system for manipulating data sets, comprising: a processor; and a data repository configured to process, retrieve, and store: data contained in the data sets; and metadata related to the data, the data repository comprising: an element module configured to uniquely identify a plurality of elements, wherein each of the elements is identified by a unique element identification; an element relation module configured to: define one or more relationships between elements of the plurality of elements; and identify one or more type definitions describing one or more types of the one or more relationships between the elements; a class module configured to define a class of one or more elements of the plurality of elements; an attribute module configured to define one or more attributes of the class; a class attribute module configured to define one or more associations between at least one of the one or more attributes and the class; a type definition module configured to define the one or more type definitions describing the one or more types of relationships between the elements; one or more collaboration modules configured to store collaboration information from a plurality of users of the system related to the one or more elements of the plurality of elements; and a collaboration status module configured to record a life cycle state of the collaboration information.