If we share data, will anyone use them? Data sharing and reuse in the long tail of science and technology

PLoS One. 2013 Jul 23;8(7):e67332. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0067332. Print 2013.

Abstract

Research on practices to share and reuse data will inform the design of infrastructure to support data collection, management, and discovery in the long tail of science and technology. These are research domains in which data tend to be local in character, minimally structured, and minimally documented. We report on a ten-year study of the Center for Embedded Network Sensing (CENS), a National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center. We found that CENS researchers are willing to share their data, but few are asked to do so, and in only a few domain areas do their funders or journals require them to deposit data. Few repositories exist to accept data in CENS research areas.. Data sharing tends to occur only through interpersonal exchanges. CENS researchers obtain data from repositories, and occasionally from registries and individuals, to provide context, calibration, or other forms of background for their studies. Neither CENS researchers nor those who request access to CENS data appear to use external data for primary research questions or for replication of studies. CENS researchers are willing to share data if they receive credit and retain first rights to publish their results. Practices of releasing, sharing, and reusing of data in CENS reaffirm the gift culture of scholarship, in which goods are bartered between trusted colleagues rather than treated as commodities.

Publication types

  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Humans
  • Information Dissemination*
  • Motivation
  • Research Personnel
  • Science*
  • Technology*

Grants and funding

Research reported here was supported in part by grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF): (1) The Center for Embedded Networked Sensing (CENS) is funded by NSF Cooperative Agreement number CCR-0120778, Deborah L. Estrin, UCLA, Principal Investigator; (2) Towards a Virtual Organization for Data Cyberinfrastructure, number OCI-0750529, C.L. Borgman, UCLA, PI; G. Bowker, Santa Clara University, Co-PI; Thomas Finholt, University of Michigan, Co-PI; (3) Monitoring, Modeling & Memory: Dynamics of Data and Knowledge in Scientific Cyberinfrastructures: number 0827322, P.N. Edwards, UM, PI; Co-PIs C.L. Borgman, UCLA; G. Bowker, SCU and Pittsburgh; T. Finholt, UM; S. Jackson, UM; D. Ribes, Georgetown; S.L. Star, SCU and Pittsburgh; and (4) The Data Conservancy, NSF Cooperative Agreement (DataNet) award OCI0830976, Sayeed Choudhury, PI, Johns Hopkins University. Microsoft Technical Computing and External Research provided gifts in support of this research program. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.