Abstract
ABSTRACTHow do archaeologists share their research data, if at all? We review what data are, according to current influential definitions, and previous work on the benefits, costs, and norms of data sharing in the sciences broadly. To understand data sharing in archaeology, we present the results of three pilot studies: requests for data by e-mail, review of data availability in published articles, and analysis of archaeological datasets deposited in repositories. We find that archaeologists are often willing to share but that discipline-wide sharing is patchy and ad hoc. Legislation and mandates are effective at increasing data sharing, but editorial policies at journals lack adequate enforcement. Although most of the data available at repositories are licensed to enable flexible reuse, only a small proportion of the data are stored in structured formats for easy reuse. We present some suggestions for improving the state of date sharing in archaeology; among these is a standard for citing datasets to ensure that researchers making their data publicly available receive appropriate credit.
Highlights
How do archaeologists share their research data, if at all? We review what data are, according to current influential definitions, and previous work on the benefits, costs, and norms of data sharing in the sciences broadly
This change has been fastest in data-rich “big science” fields, such as astronomy, physics, and oceanography, that use expensive instruments that generate data shared with large teams of collaborators to produce new discoveries (Reichman and Uhlir 2003)
We found that legislation requiring data sharing resulted in a substantial increase in the rate of data deposition and that archaeologists are sensitive to repository fees
Summary
National Science Foundation has had a data sharing policy that states: Investigators are expected to share with other researchers, at no more than incremental cost and within a reasonable time, the primary data, samples, physical collections and other supporting materials created or gathered in the course of work under NSF grants. In addition to our e-mail survey, we conducted a pilot study of a random sample of 48 articles published during February– May 2017 in the Journal of Archaeological Science to investigate data sharing behaviors. In this sample we found openly available raw data for 18 essays (53%), even though only seven articles (21%) include a data availability statement. In the pilot studies reported above we see three common approaches to sharing data: sending files privately by e-mail, following a personal request; including data as supplementary files submitted for publication with a journal article; and sharing data by depositing files in a trustworthy, public, DOI-issuing repository.
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