figshare Releases “The State of Open Data 2018 – Global Attitudes Towards Open Data” (Annual Report)

From Digital Science:

[The State of Open Data 2018 – Global Attitudes Towards Open Data] report is the third in the series and includes survey results and a collection of articles from global industry experts, as well as a foreword from Ross Wilkinson, Global Strategy at the Australian Research Data Commons.
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Key findings include:

• 64% of respondents revealed they made their data openly available in 2018, a 7% rise on 2016
• Data citations are motivating more respondents to make data openly available, increasing 7% from 2017 to 46%
• 60% of respondents had never heard of FAIR principles (Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability and Reusability) – which provide a guideline for data producers and publishers to enhance the reusability of academic data.
• The percentage of respondents in support of national mandates for open data is higher at 63% than in 2017 (55%)
• Respondents who revealed that they had reused open data in their research continues to shrink. In 2018 48% said they had done this, whereas in 2017 50% had done so, with 2016 57% in 2016
• Most researchers felt that they did not get sufficient credit for sharing data (58%), compared to 9% who felt they do
• Respondents having lost research data has decreased from 2017 (36% versus 30% in 2018)

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We asked a number of questions about FAIR principles this year with some surprising results. The percentage of respondents who reported being familiar with the principles was just 15%, with 25% having previously heard of FAIR and 60% never having heard of them.
The results confirmed that despite publishers, funders and institutions rapidly adopting these principles, there remains a crucial gap in educating researchers. They further show the need for initiatives like Go Fair, which gives researchers clear instructions on how to be FAIR compliant.

Direct to Full Text Report

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