Étiquette : data sharing

Research data sharing during the Zika virus public health emergency

Authors : Vanessa de Arruda Jorge, Sarita Albagli

Introduction

In a public health emergency, sharing of research data is acknowledged as essential to manage treatment and control of the disease. The objective of this study was to examine how researchers reacted during the Zika virus emergency in Brazil.

Method

A literature review examined both unpublished reports and the published literature. Interviews were conducted with eleven researchers (from a sample of sixteen) in the Renezika network. Questions concerned sources of data used for research on the Zika virus, where this data was obtained, and what requirements by funding agencies influenced how data generated was shared – and how open the degree of sharing was.

Analysis

A content analysis matrix was developed based on the results of the interviews. The data were organised acording to categories, subcategories, records units and frequency of records units.

Results

Researchers stressed the importance of access to issue samples as well as pure research data. Collaboration – and publication – increased but also depended on trust in existing networks. Researchers were aware that many agencies and publishers required the deposit of research data in repositories – and several options existed for Zika research.

Conclusions

The findings show that research data were shared, but not necessarily as open data. Trust was necessary between researchers, and researchers in developing countries needed to be assured about their rights and ownership of data, and publications using that data.

URL : http://informationr.net/ir/25-1/paper846.html

A Realistic Guide to Making Data Available Alongside Code to Improve Reproducibility

Authors : Nicholas J Tierney, Karthik Ram

Data makes science possible. Sharing data improves visibility, and makes the research process transparent. This increases trust in the work, and allows for independent reproduction of results.

However, a large proportion of data from published research is often only available to the original authors. Despite the obvious benefits of sharing data, and scientists’ advocating for the importance of sharing data, most advice on sharing data discusses its broader benefits, rather than the practical considerations of sharing.

This paper provides practical, actionable advice on how to actually share data alongside research. The key message is sharing data falls on a continuum, and entering it should come with minimal barriers.

URL : https://arxiv.org/abs/2002.11626

A study of the impact of data sharing on article citations using journal policies as a natural experiment

Authors : Garret Christensen, Allan Dafoe, Edward Miguel, Don A. Moore, Andrew K. Rose

This study estimates the effect of data sharing on the citations of academic articles, using journal policies as a natural experiment. We begin by examining 17 high-impact journals that have adopted the requirement that data from published articles be publicly posted.

We match these 17 journals to 13 journals without policy changes and find that empirical articles published just before their change in editorial policy have citation rates with no statistically significant difference from those published shortly after the shift.

We then ask whether this null result stems from poor compliance with data sharing policies, and use the data sharing policy changes as instrumental variables to examine more closely two leading journals in economics and political science with relatively strong enforcement of new data policies.

We find that articles that make their data available receive 97 additional citations (estimate standard error of 34).

We conclude that: a) authors who share data may be rewarded eventually with additional scholarly citations, and b) data-posting policies alone do not increase the impact of articles published in a journal unless those policies are enforced.

URL : A study of the impact of data sharing on article citations using journal policies as a natural experiment

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0225883

Playing Well on the Data FAIRground: Initiatives and Infrastructure in Research Data Management

Authors : Danielle Descoteaux, Chiara Farinelli, Marina Soares e Silva, Anita de Waard

Over the past five years, Elsevier has focused on implementing FAIR and best practices in data management, from data preservation through reuse. In this paper we describe a series of efforts undertaken in this time to support proper data management practices.

In particular, we discuss our journal data policies and their implementation, the current status and future goals for the research data management platform Mendeley Data, and clear and persistent linkages to individual data sets stored on external data repositories from corresponding published papers through partnership with Scholix.

Early analysis of our data policies implementation confirms significant disparities at the subject level regarding data sharing practices, with most uptake within disciplines of Physical Sciences. Future directions at Elsevier include implementing better discoverability of linked data within an article and incorporating research data usage metrics.

URL : Playing Well on the Data FAIRground: Initiatives and Infrastructure in Research Data Management

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1162/dint_a_00020

Open Access in developing countries – attitudes and experiences of researchers

Authors : Andy Nobes, Sian Harris

Open Access is often considered as particularly beneficial to researchers in the Global South. However, research into awareness of and attitudes to Open Access has been largely dominated by voices from the Global North.

A survey was conducted of 507 researchers from the developing world and connected to INASP’s AuthorAID project to ascertain experiences and attitudes to Open Access publishing.

The survey revealed problems for the researchers in gaining access to research literature in the first place. There was a very positive attitude to Open Access research and Open Access journals, but when selecting a journal in which to publish, Open Access was seen as a much less important criterion than factors relating to international reputation.

Overall, a majority of respondents had published in an Open Access journal and most of these had paid an article processing charge. Knowledge and use of self-archiving via repositories varied, and only around 20% had deposited their research in an institutional repository.

The study also examined attitudes to copyright, revealing most respondents had heard of Creative Commons licences and were positive about the sharing of research for educational use and dissemination, but there was unease about research being used for commercial purposes.

Respondents revealed a surprisingly positive stance towards openly sharing research data, although many revealed that they would need further guidance on how to do so. The survey also revealed that the majority had received emails from so called ‘predatory’ publishers and that a small minority had published in them.

URL : Open Access in developing countries – attitudes and experiences of researchers

Alternative location : https://zenodo.org/record/3464868

Dataset search: a survey

Authors : Adriane Chapman, Elena Simperl, Laura Koesten, George Konstantinidis, Luis-Daniel Ibáñez, Emilia Kacprzak, Paul Groth

Generating value from data requires the ability to find, access and make sense of datasets. There are many efforts underway to encourage data sharing and reuse, from scientific publishers asking authors to submit data alongside manuscripts to data marketplaces, open data portals and data communities.

Google recently beta-released a search service for datasets, which allows users to discover data stored in various online repositories via keyword queries. These developments foreshadow an emerging research field around dataset search or retrieval that broadly encompasses frameworks, methods and tools that help match a user data need against a collection of datasets.

Here, we survey the state of the art of research and commercial systems and discuss what makes dataset search a field in its own right, with unique challenges and open questions.

We look at approaches and implementations from related areas dataset search is drawing upon, including information retrieval, databases, entity-centric and tabular search in order to identify possible paths to tackle these questions as well as immediate next steps that will take the field forward.

URL : Dataset search: a survey

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s00778-019-00564-x

Data Sharing Practices among Researchers at South African Universities

Authors : Siviwe Bangani, Mathew Moyo

Research data management practices have gained momentum the world over. This is due to increased demands by governments and other funding agencies to have research data archived and shared as widely as possible.

This paper sought to establish the data sharing practices of researchers in South Africa. The study further sought to establish the level of collaboration among researchers in sharing research data at the university level.

The outcomes of the survey will help the researchers to develop appropriate data literacy awareness programmes meant to stimulate growth in data sharing practices for the benefit of research, not only in South Africa, but the world at large.

A survey research method was used to gather data from willing public universities in South Africa. A similar study was conducted in other countries such as the United Kingdom, France and Turkey but the Researchers believe that circumstances in the developed world may differ with the South African research environment, hence the current study.

The major finding of this study was that most researchers preferred to use data produced by others but less keen on sharing their own data.

This study is the first of its kind in South Africa which investigates data sharing practices of researchers from multi-disciplinary fields at the university level and will contribute immensely to the growing body of literature in the area of research data management.

URL : Data Sharing Practices among Researchers at South African Universities

DOI : http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2019-028