Abstract
Data sharing can be defined as the release of research data that can be used by others. With the recent open-science movement, there has been a call for free access to data, tools and methods in academia. In recent years, subject-based and institutional repositories and data centres have emerged along with online publishing. Many scientific records, including published articles and data, have been made available via new platforms. In the United Kingdom, most major research funders had a data policy and require researchers to include a ‘data-sharing plan’ when applying for funding. However, there are a number of barriers to the full-scale adoption of data sharing. Those barriers are not only technical, but also psychological and social. A survey was conducted with over 1800 UK-based academics to explore the extent of support of data sharing and the characteristics and factors associated with data-sharing practice. It found that while most academics recognised the importance of sharing research data, most of them had never shared or reused research data. There were differences in the extent of data sharing between different gender, academic disciplines, age and seniority. It also found that the awareness of Research Council UK’s (RCUK) Open-Access (OA) policy, experience of Gold and Green OA publishing, attitudes towards the importance of data sharing and experience of using secondary data were associated with the practice of data sharing. A small group of researchers used social media such as Twitter, blogs and Facebook to promote the research data they had shared online. Our findings contribute to the knowledge and understanding of open science and offer recommendations to academic institutions, journals and funding agencies.
Highlights
New forms of scholarly communication emerged with the development of the Internet and digital technology which enabled more open practices within the academic community
From April 2013, Research Council UK’s1 (RCUK) OA policy came into effect which required RCUK-funded research to be published either through OA journals (Gold OA) or self-archiving (Green OA) [2]
Gold OA publishing experience was no longer significant having controlled for Green OA experience. This suggests that for those who had no experience of depositing research articles online, there is no significant difference from those who published in OA journals or not in terms of data sharing
Summary
New forms of scholarly communication emerged with the development of the Internet and digital technology which enabled more open practices within the academic community. These new forms include open-access (OA) publishing, sharing pri- mary research data, publishing research updates online as well as using social media for various reasons in research work, such as searching for research information, promoting publications and networking with peers. Eschenfelder and Johnson [14] sug- gested that open-data archives could provide OA to anonymous public use including for commercial purposes, and could have controlled access which require the users to register and provide information as a condition of access or use. Significance level of OR: *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001. 1.32*
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
