There can be very good reasons for sharing research data.
1. Funders will demand that you do so.
2. Sharing data reduces redundancy and risk of data loss
3. Increases efficiency in the research process.
4. Access to the data means the research process can be replicated and validated.
5. Data is also an asset which can be cited in the same way as publications. There in the increasing popularity of Data papers which describes the datasets, rational and methodology without offering analysis or conclusion. These can also be cited in the same way as academic articles.
By sharing datasets a researcher and an institution can acquire a reputation for producing good quality datasets. However, researchers can have legitimate concerns about sharing data. Many consider it a personal resource which fuels their publications, a researcher may not trust others to use the data appropriately, there can be a lack of time to develop metadata around the dataset and there can be concerns about privacy and anonymity especially in relation to human subjects. But researchers have always shared their data and more and more are doing so.
Remember data needs metadata to be meaningful. Metadata provides context and the provenance of the data. It will provide an explanation of the methodology and instructions on how to replicate the process. This will be easily done if the data has been managed with a plan throughout the research process.When it comes to sharing your data a Readme File is essential. Please see Guidelines for Creating a Readme File.
There are many ways to share your data
1. Deposit with a trusted archive. Re3data.org is a global registry of research data repositories, covering a wide range of academic disciplines as is Data repositories in the Open Access Directory.
2. Avail of the Open Science Framework which is a scientific workflow management system produced by the Centre for Open Science https://cos.io/. OSF supports research collaboration and the entire research lifecycle.
3. Deposit a dataset with a readme file in the Arrow Data Portal
4. Input a metadata record on the Arrow Data Portal with a “contact the data owner button”
5. Link the journal article with the underlying data. Many publishers will request that you do this but please note you can also do this in Arrow@TU
Data Citation
Please ensure that you cite other people’s data correctly and they in turn will do the same for you. The following should be included in a data citation
Author/Creator, Title, Publisher or Data Repository, Publication Year (date dataset was released or published), Identifier (edition or version), Version, Availability/Access (url, doi, link), date accessed.
Some publishers offer a service to organise and curate the data so it can be shared for e.g. Research Data Support Service
