What drives and inhibits researchers to share and use open research data? A systematic literature review to analyze factors influencing open research data adoption

Abstract

Both sharing and using open research data have the revolutionary potentials for forwarding scientific advancement. Although previous research gives insight into researchers' drivers and inhibitors for sharing and using open research data, both these drivers and inhibitors have not yet been integrated via a thematic analysis and a theoretical argument is lacking. This study's purpose is to systematically review the literature on individual researchers' drivers and inhibitors for sharing and using open research data. This study systematically analyzed 32 open data studies (published between 2004 and 2019 inclusively) and elicited drivers plus inhibitors for both open research data sharing and use in eleven categories total that are: 'the researcher's background', 'requirements and formal obligations', 'personal drivers and intrinsic motivations', 'facilitating conditions', 'trust', 'expected performance', 'social influence and affiliation', 'effort', 'the researcher's experience and skills', 'legislation and regulation', and 'data characteristics.' This study extensively discusses these categories, along with argues how such categories and factors are connected using a thematic analysis. Also, this study discusses several opportunities for altogether applying, extending, using, and testing theories in open research data studies. With such discussions, an overview of identified categories and factors can be further applied to examine both researchers' drivers and inhibitors in different research disciplines, such as those with low rates of data sharing and use versus disciplines with high rates of data sharing plus use. What's more, this study serves as a first vital step towards developing effective incentives for both open data sharing and use behavior.

Open Research Data and Open Peer Review: Perceptions of a Medical and Health Sciences Community in Greece

“…Even though data sharing offers great potential for scientific progress by reproducing study results and by allowing the reuse of data, scientists hesitate to make their files available in public. The study of Zuiderwijk et al [25] provides a systematical review of 32 open data studies on individual researchers' drivers and inhibitors for sharing and using Open Research Data (ORD). The upcoming paragraphs attempt to identify the most common inhibitors that result in low rates of data sharing among researchers, focusing on the medical community.…”

“…The extra working load along with teaching and administrative obligations, the disciplinary norm, the unclear career benefits and the risks that may occur could significantly have a negative impact on researchers' attitudes towards data sharing [24,39]. Only scientists who exclusively conduct research are more likely to share their data because of the time privilege [25,26].…”

Open Research Data and Open Peer Review: Perceptions of a Medical and Health Sciences Community in Greece

“…Even though data sharing offers great potentials for scientific progress by reproducing study results and by allowing the reuse of data, scientists hesitate to make their files available in public. The study of Zuiderwijk et al [24] provides a systematical review of 32 open data studies on individual researchers' drivers and inhibitors for sharing and using open research data. The upcoming paragraphs attempt to identify the most common inhibitors that result in low rates of data sharing among researchers, focusing on the medical community.…”

“…The extra working load along with teaching and administrative obligations, the disciplinary norm, the unclear career benefits and the risks that may occur could significantly have a negative impact on researchers' attitudes towards data sharing [36], [37]. Only scientists who exclusively conduct research are more likely to share their data because of the time privilege [24] [25].…”

“…questionnaire, which is divided into three parts, namely FAIR principles awareness and ORD -OPR related questions (See Appendix A). The 215 actual participants (out of 415 total population) in the questionnaire were academic doctors (42), doctors in the National Health System (107), nursing (24) and paramedical staff (10), postgraduate medical students and health researchers (32-others), affiliated with the General Hospital of Athens "Hippocratio". They all agreed to participate in a series of surveys, which included topics related to scholarly publishing as the ones presented in this paper.…”