73% of Academics Say Access to Research Data Helps Them in Their Work; 34% Do Not Publish Their Data

…

The report, Open Data: The Researcher Perspective, is the result of a year-long, co-conducted study between Elsevier, the information analytics company specializing in science and health, and the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS), part of Leiden University, the Netherlands.

The study is based on a complementary methods approach consisting of a quantitative analysis of bibliometric and publication data, a global survey of 1,200 researchers and three case studies including in-depth interviews with key individuals involved in data collection, analysis and deposition in the fields of soil science, human genetics and digital humanities.

Report findings include:

– Researchers acknowledge the benefits of open data, but data sharing practices are still limited. Reasons mentioned include: not enough training in data sharing, sharing data is not associated with credit or reward, research data management and privacy issues, proprietary aspects and ethics.

– Data sharing mandates by funders (or publishers) are not considered a driver by researchers to increase their data sharing practices; 64% of researchers believe they own the data they generated for their research.

…