Concerns about opening up data, and responses which have proved effective (or “How to make friends and get them to give you their data”)  Christopher Gutteridge, University of Southampton Alexander Dutton, University of Oxford  This document is inspired by the open data excuses bingo card.  Some...

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A huge project unexpectedly led to a way of finding disease genes without needing to know about diseases.

The incorporation of data sharing into the research lifecycle is an important part of modern scholarly debate. In this study, the DataONE Usability and Assessment working group addresses two primary goals: To examine the current state of data sharing and reuse perceptions and practices among research scientists as they compare to the 2009/2010 baseline study, and to examine differences in practices and perceptions across age groups, geographic regions, and subject disciplines. We distributed surveys to a multinational sample of scientific researchers at two different time periods (October 2009 to July 2010 and October 2013 to March 2014) to observe current states of data sharing and to see what, if any, changes have occurred in the past 3–4 years. We also looked at differences across age, geographic, and discipline-based groups as they currently exist in the 2013/2014 survey. Results point to increased acceptance of and willingness to engage in data sharing, as well as an increase in actual data sharing behaviors. However, there is also increased perceived risk associated with data sharing, and specific barriers to data sharing persist. There are also differences across age groups, with younger respondents feeling more favorably toward data sharing and reuse, yet making less of their data available than older respondents. Geographic differences exist as well, which can in part be understood in terms of collectivist and individualist cultural differences. An examination of subject disciplines shows that the constraints and enablers of data sharing and reuse manifest differently across disciplines. Implications of these findings include the continued need to build infrastructure that promotes data sharing while recognizing the needs of different research communities. Moving into the future, organizations such as DataONE will continue to assess, monitor, educate, and provide the infrastructure necessary to support such complex grand science challenges.

Open Data — data that is freely available online for anyone to use and republish for any purpose — is becoming increasingly important in today’s development agenda driven by the Data Revolution, which has been recognized worldwide as the key engine for achieving the post-2015 UN Sustainable Development Goals. ​Data is ...

The Dataverse 4 catalog expands access to research, across many Web platforms, even globally.

Read the latest article version by Fabrizio Celli, Thembani Malapela, Karna Wegner, Imma Subirats, Elena Kokoliou, Johannes Keizer, at F1000Research.

Major flaws in two massive trials of deworming pills show the importance of sharing data — which most scientists don't do.

A recent study sent data requests to 200 authors of economics articles where it was stated ‘data available upon request’. Most of the authors refused. What does the scientific community…

In 2002, an article in the Washington Monthly explored a new trend called "open-source biology." It asked, "Can a band of biologists who share data...

Wherein I reiterate what others have said and express frustration with The Powers That Be  Of all of the problems in the world of data sharing, the most frustrating to me is the data that are shared but are completely unusable to others. As I've argued before (and of course, I'm not alone in this ar

The Seattle Police Department is taking the unconventional step of bringing a programmer who bombarded it with public records requests in-house. Chief Operating Officer Mike Wagers has led efforts to hire 24-year-old self-taught programmer Tim Clemans—initially, at least, on a three-month trial basis to work on redaction and disclosure of data. He'll make $22.60 an hour and start on May 6. If all goes well, Clemans will stay on as a full-time staffer....

Despite widespread support from policy makers, funding agencies, and scientific journals, academic researchers rarely make their research data available to others. At the same time, data sharing in research is attributed a vast potential for scientific progress. It allows the reproducibility of study results and the reuse of old data for new research questions. Based on a systematic review of 98 scholarly papers and an empirical survey among 603 secondary data users, we develop a conceptual framework that explains the process of data sharing from the primary researcher’s point of view. We show that this process can be divided into six descriptive categories: Data donor, research organization, research community, norms, data infrastructure, and data recipients. Drawing from our findings, we discuss theoretical implications regarding knowledge creation and dissemination as well as research policy measures to foster academic collaboration. We conclude that research data cannot be regarded as knowledge commons, but research policies that better incentivise data sharing are needed to improve the quality of research results and foster scientific progress.

Kavita Patel and co-authors analyze Medicare data to help determine how open data can inform the development of smart health policy.

I've often found myself exploring a library's map room or thumbing through old Census records while taking study breaks. I was often surprised how I could become engrossed with old data. Some of th...