The role of reuse of research data in research studies

Abstract

Open Science presents the idea that scientific knowledge should be openly shared, as central values of science are transparency, verifiability, replicability, and openness (Abele-Brehm, Gollwitzer, Steinberg, Schönbrodt, 2019). Its aim is to make "bodies of knowledge that would advance human understanding and benefit humankind" openly available (Willinsky, 2006, 36). The scientific body of knowledge consists of various information entities, including widely popular research data. Similar to other information entities in open science, research data should also achieve several purposes: be openly available to make the existing research more credible; enhance science as a global public good via data patrimonialization, pooling, and synergies; help in verification and trustbuilding; broader engagement; add value to data production; facilitate and accelerate efforts to address the big challenges of our time and other mission-oriented science (Berkowitz, Delacour, 2022). The demand for openly shared research data has risen over the last decade, both at the national and international levels, putting pressure on researchers from funding institutions and journal publishers (Thoegersen, Borlund, 2022). These purposes become evident in numerous scientific publications and different scientific events as the interest in the research process continues growing (Andrew, Winnie Wan, 2018).
 The purposes also raised a question about whether all research data already stored in, for instance, digital repositories, are suitable for further analysis and can be correctly interpreted and reused in new research. The purpose of this research is to investigate whether researchers in different fields of science in Croatia consider research data as a prerequisite and/or a starting point for their next research, and whether these data are reused just for comparative purposes with their results or as a means to assess the quality of other scientists’ research. The research study is not pre-registered as Croatia does not have a national open science online platform for pre-registration, and there are no ethical concerns with the research questions. The principal research method in this research study is an online questionnaire written in the Croatian language, consisting of 28 questions created for this research study (they will be made available after the conclusion of the study, as is customary). The questionnaire is divided into four parts: aspects of use of research data (sources of research data, importance of research data for planning, executing and quality of research), access to research data for other researchers (quantity of data to share, interaction between researchers, rewards for sharing research data, obstacles when sharing research data, benefits of sharing research data), archiving of research data (where and what) and data about the respondents. The possible participants are invited via e-mail sent to the Croatian scientists mailing list (a central e-mail address) including scientists from all fields of sciences. Therefore, thesample is a convenient one. The results will be analysed using descriptive statistics. It is expected that the participating scientists in Croatia will provide answers that will help clarify their position on the role of use and sharing of research data in their research activities.