Why Share Your Data?

Data sharing is the practice of making data used for scholarly research available to others. Many funding agencies, institutions, and publication venues have policies regarding data sharing because transparency and openness are considered by many to be part of the scientific method. Why should librarians advocate for data sharing and open data? (adapted from MIT Libraries Data Mangement Research Guide).

Preserve your data: Depositing your data in a repository safeguards your investment of time and resources while preserving your research contribution for you and others to use.

Meet grant requirements: Many funding agencies now require that researchers deposit data collected as part of a research project.

Promote new discoveries: Sharing your data with other researchers can lead to new and unanticipated discoveries and provide research material for those with little or no funding.

Support open access: Be a catalyst for research and discovery. Show your support for open access by sharing your data.
 

• Notes on Changing Practices in Data Publication (2015) – Notes from the December 2014 meeting, including mention of how the OSTP Memo will change data publication and sharing practices.

• Troubleshooting Public Data Archiving: Suggestions to Increase Participation (2014) – Article from PLOS Biology. Public data archiving has many benefits for society, but some scientists are reluctant to share their data. This Perspective offers some practical solutions to reduce costs and increase benefits for individual researchers.

• Data Citation and Sharing: What's in it for me? (2014) – Sarah Callaghan writes that sharing data is good for science and the scientist in a post from "The Impact Blog".

• Abelard and Héloise: Why Data and Publications Belong Together (2011) – Article explores the current state of integration of publications and data and concludes that researchers and publishers have very few best practices on how to handle data. Recommends collaboration among the information chain of research institutes, authors, publishers, data centers and libraries. Discusses DataCite as one solution for proper curation of datasets and their linking with publications.