New Report: “Research Data: The Researcher Perspective”
The following report will be presented on Friday, April 7, 2017 at the RDA [Research Data Alliance] Ninth Plenary Meeting in Barcelona, Spain.
From a Joint News Release:
The report, Open Data: The Researcher Perspective, is the result of a year-long, co-conducted study between Elsevier and the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS), part of Leiden University, the Netherlands.
The study is based on a complementary methods approach consisting of a quantitative analysis of bibliometric and publication data, a global survey of 1,200 researchers and three case studies including in-depth interviews with key individuals involved in data collection, analysis and deposition in the fields of soil science, human genetics and digital humanities.
Selected Findings
- 73 percent of academics say access to research data helps them in their work; 34 percent do not publish their data
Researchers acknowledge the benefits of open data, but data sharing practices are still limited. Reasons mentioned include: not enough training in data sharing, sharing data is not associated with credit or reward, research data management and privacy issues, proprietary aspects and ethics.
- Data sharing mandates by funders (or publishers) are not considered a driver by researchers to increase their data sharing practices; 64% of researchers believe they own the data they generated for their research.
- Public data sharing primarily occurs through the current publishing system; less than 15% of researchers share data in a data repository. When researchers do share their data directly, most (>80%) share with direct collaborators.
- 34% of researchers surveyed do not publish data at all. Those who do share data still use more traditional processes, such as through publication of data aggregated into tables and annexes.
- Analysis of publication in data journals reveals scattered practices: dedicated data journals are a new and small-scale phenomenon; the popularity is increasing quickly.
- There is an almost even split between researchers who believe there are no clear standards for citing published data (45%) and those who believe there are clear standards (41%).
- Data-sharing practices depend on the field: there is no general approach. In intensive data-sharing fields, data sharing practice is embedded into the research design and execution.
Direct to Full Text Report
48 pages; PDF.
See Also: RDA Ninth Plenary Meeting Website
Filed under: Companies (Publishers/Vendors), Data Files, Elsevier, Interviews, Management and Leadership, News, Open Access, Publishing
About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.