Abstract
Abstract ‘Open data’ has recently emerged as a label for renewed attempts to promote scientific exchange. As part of such efforts, the posting of data online is often portrayed as commonly beneficial: individual scientists accrue greater prominence while at the same time fostering communal knowledge. Yet, how scientists in non-Western research settings assess such calls for openness has been the subject of little empirical study. Based on extended fieldwork with biochemistry laboratories in sub-Sahara Africa, this paper examines a variety of reasons why scientists opt for closure over openness with regard to their own data. We argue that the heterogeneity of research environments calls into question many of the presumptions made as part of open data. Inequalities in research environments can mean that moves towards sharing create binds and dilemmas. These observations suggest that those promoting openness must critically examine current research governance and funding systems that continue to perpetuate disparities. The paper proposes an innovative approach to facilitating openness: coupling the sharing of data with enabling scientists to redress their day-to-day research environment demands. Such a starting basis provides an alternative but vital link between the aspirations for science aired today as part of international discussions and the daily challenges of undertaking research in low-resourced environments.
Highlights
Questions about who should share what data, and with whom, have long accompanied research
In terms of how to promote data sharing in resource constrained environments, we propose that Open Data initiatives could benefit from a re-orientation
Much of the policy promotion of Open Data and data sharing today starts with belief in the importance of openness, and an assumption that all scientists will benefit from releasing data, no matter where they are based
Summary
Questions about who should share what data, and with whom, have long accompanied research. Increasing pressure to make data available have heightened the requirements for processing and curating it too, though the forms of labor needed for such work are generally poorly recognized and rewarded within professional and organizational structures (Ankeny and Leonelli, 2015) Against these type of widely recognized issues, how scientists can be encouraged to be more open has been identified as a matter of considerable urgency (Hayden, 2010; Leonelli et al, 2013). A 2010 report by RIN and the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts further highlighted perceived lack of evidence of benefits, lack of time and skills, cultures of independence, as well as concerns about quality and about ownership (RIN/NESTA, 2010) Despite such concerns, the release of data online is recognized by many of the surveyed scientists in North American and Europe as having professional benefits in addition to its philanthropic good, and, critically, the benefits can justify the additional time and effort spent on curation and dissemination activities. Based on the fieldwork undertaken in support in this article, in section five we return to consideration of frameworks for understanding scientists’ data practices
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