When are researchers willing to share their data? – Impacts of values and uncertainty on open data in academia

Abstract

Background E-science technologies have significantly increased the availability of data. Research grant providers such as the European Union increasingly require open access publishing of research results and data. However, despite its significance to research, the adoption rate of open data technology remains low across all disciplines, especially in Europe where research has primarily focused on technical solutions (such as Zenodo or the Open Science Framework) or considered only parts of the issue. Methods and findings In this study, we emphasized the non-technical factors perceived value and uncertainty factors in the context of academia, which impact researchers' acceptance of open data-the idea that researchers should not only publish their findings in the form of articles or reports, but also share the corresponding raw data sets. We present the results of a broad quantitative analysis including N = 995 researchers from 13 large to medium-sized universities in Germany. In order to test 11 hypotheses regarding researchers' intentions to share their data, as well as detect any hierarchical or disciplinary differences, we employed a structured equation model (SEM) following the partial least squares (PLS) modeling approach. Conclusions Grounded in the value-based theory, this article proclaims that most individuals in academia embrace open data when the perceived advantages outweigh the disadvantages. Furthermore, uncertainty factors impact the perceived value (consisting of the perceived advantages and disadvantages) of sharing research data. We found that researchers' assumptions about effort required during the data preparation process were diminished by awareness of e-science technologies (such as Zenodo or the Open Science Framework), which also increased their tendency to perceive personal benefits via data exchange.

Opening Marine Long-Term Ecological Science: Lesson Learned From the LTER-Italy Site Northern Adriatic Sea

“…At the time, only a few were involved with projects where opening the data was under consideration. As evidenced also by other authors (Mann et al, 2008;Andreoli-Versbach and Mueller-Langer, 2014;Stieglitz et al, 2020), a certain resistance to openly share the data was present, at least at the beginning. These resistances were mainly due to the concern about the proper acknowledgment to the data producers and the extra time needed to follow and accomplish the whole process (Digital Science et al, 2020).…”

“…The scientific community seems now ready to implement Open Science in its routine work. However, despite its significance to research, in Europe, the adoption rate of open data technology remains low across all disciplines (Stieglitz et al, 2020). By contrast, some United States (US) governmental institutions (e.g., NASA, NOAA, and USGS), took effort to the application of Open Science principles in the past decades especially on the open data front (e.g., data releases by the ASTER NASA program since 2000 5 , including oceanography data by the NOAA Sentinel Site program 6 ), allowing the use of open data to become common practice at government level, long before similar applications occurred in Europe.…”

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

“…On the contrary, they are not familiar with basic terms of ORD, like FAIR principles and they opposed to any exploitation of their research data for commercial and non-commercial use. This somewhat contradicting perception is mostly related to the competition for career progression or/and the inside knowledge for inconsistencies at the research methodology [61] [25]. In addition, especially for health sciences, it may also be related to the personal (sensitive) character of the medical research data, which demands compliance with medical data protection policies, and it is reflected as well as in participants' responses in the present survey.…”

Rewarding Research Data Management

“…Considering data sharing, researchers are generally well aware of personal benefits, like career or performance advantages, even if the degree to which benefits arise varies in relation to disciplines and hierarchy levels [22]. Then again, nevertheless, a systematic review in the field of health and medical research revealed that there are in fact few evidence-based incentives for data sharing, with open data badges being the only tested incentive.…”