Research Article
If We Share Data, Will Anyone Use Them? Data Sharing and Reuse in the Long Tail of Science and Technology
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Jillian C. Wallis,
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Elizabeth Rolando,
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Christine L. Borgman
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0067332
Abstract
Research
on practices to share and reuse data will inform the design of
infrastructure to support data collection, management, and discovery in
the long tail of science and technology. These are research domains in
which data tend to be local in character, minimally structured, and
minimally documented. We report on a ten-year study of the Center for
Embedded Network Sensing (CENS), a National Science Foundation Science
and Technology Center. We found that CENS researchers are willing to
share their data, but few are asked to do so, and in only a few domain
areas do their funders or journals require them to deposit data. Few
repositories exist to accept data in CENS research areas.. Data sharing
tends to occur only through interpersonal exchanges. CENS researchers
obtain data from repositories, and occasionally from registries and
individuals, to provide context, calibration, or other forms of
background for their studies. Neither CENS researchers nor those who
request access to CENS data appear to use external data for primary
research questions or for replication of studies. CENS researchers are
willing to share data if they receive credit and retain first rights to
publish their results. Practices of releasing, sharing, and reusing of
data in CENS reaffirm the gift culture of scholarship, in which goods
are bartered between trusted colleagues rather than treated as
commodities.
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