Author: Guest contributor
There’s increasing
evidence that sharing the research data which underpins your published
article can have tangible benefits for you, and for your research
career.
Written by Rebecca Grant, Research Data Manager at Springer Nature
When
you deposit your data in a repository and link it to your research
article, it can be found, accessed and reused by researchers in
different institutions, different regions, and even different
disciplines. There are obvious benefits to science when researchers
share data - but what specific benefits can you expect?
1. More citations of your published research articles
When you share the
dataset that underpins your article, it’s not just the article that
might be reused or cited; data sharing is also associated with an
increase in citations to your research article of up to 25%.*
2. Greater discoverability and enhanced visibility
Sharing
data in a repository makes it visible, and easily found by researchers
other than those reading the journal you’ve published in. Data
repositories are increasingly searchable on Google and indexed in
resources like Google Dataset Search. The metadata you add to your
data’s repository record helps others to understand how it was generated
and what it consists of.
3. Get credit for your work and gain recognition
Not
content with just increased citations of your article? More and more
journals allow authors to cite datasets in reference lists, so if
someone reuses your data, you get an additional citation for it.
4. New opportunities for collaboration
When
your data can be easily found, other researchers can reuse it; or they
may wish to work with you collaboratively to build on the data you’ve
already shared.
5. Improve the veracity, robustness and reproducibility of your results
Science
is in the midst of a reproducibility crisis, and many researchers
report that they can’t reproduce others’ research (or even their own)
.** Sharing data openly can encourage studies which replicate studies,
and allow others to test the validity of your results.
Get started with research data sharing
Want
to try data sharing? There are a few simple steps you can take to get
started. You’ll need to identify which parts of your data you want to
share, decide where to share it, and write a data availability statement
to ensure that others can find it.
If
your research generated large volumes of data, or multiple versions, it
might not be clear what data you’re meant to be sharing. You can check
with the policies of your funding agency, or the journal you’re
publishing in, to find guidance on what you should share.
There
are literally thousands of data repositories available online,
including repositories which are specifically for certain data types or
research disciplines; those provided by your institution or funder; or
some which accept data in any format. It’s beneficial to select the
repository which is most commonly used in your discipline - reading how
other researchers in your field share their data can help you to
establish which repository that might be.
Data
availability statements are the best way to link your research paper to
your dataset. They’re a simple paragraph which outlines where your data
are and how they can be accessed (ideally in a data repository!).
Journals are increasingly encouraging authors to add this statement to
submitted manuscripts.
Need more help sharing data?
Research Data Support
Springer
Nature Research Data Support service is a curation service for any
published researcher (or those who are in the process of publishing in a
Springer Nature journal or book). Researchers that use the service may
feel that they don’t have the time, expertise or knowledge needed to
organise data in a useful way, meet funder or institutional requirements
on data sharing and get more credit and readership of their data and
associated publication.
Our team of expert research data editors
do all the time-consuming work of creating high quality metadata
records, making your research data understandable and easier to find and
use by researchers in your field of study: time that you could use to
carry out new research. We make sure that other researchers can find and
cite your work, so that you get the credit you deserve.
Find out more about Research Data Support.
Data publishing
Data
publishing supports researchers who want to share their datasets
through peer-reviewed publications, without having to be at the stage of
presenting further analysis and conclusions, as in a traditional
research paper. Springer Nature supports and encourages data
publications: we publish two dedicated data-publishing journals, Scientific Data and BMC Research Notes, and a number of our subject-specific academic journals offer article types suitable for data-only publications.
Our data papers put an emphasis on making data FAIR through recommended repositories, data citations and rapid publication.
To find out more, visit our research data publishing page, or get in touch directly via email.
*The
citation advantage of linking publications to research data. Giovanni
Colavizza,Iain Hrynaszkiewicz,Isla Staden,Kirstie Whitaker,Barbara
McGillivray. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0230416
** www.nature.com/news/1-500-scientists-lift-the-lid-on-reproducibility-1.19970
If you would like to learn more about research data, our upcoming free webinar on 8 December, Sharing Research Data: What Publishers Want Authors to Know, will provide an introduction to good practice in research data sharing and tips and guidance for getting started. Register here.
About the author
Rebecca
Grant is Research Data Manager at Springer Nature, where she
contributes to projects and services which support research data
management and sharing, including the implementation of standard
research data policies across Springer Nature journals. She leads the
development of research data training as part of Nature Research
Academies, and is a qualified data trainer certified by the Open Data
Institute. Her doctoral thesis explored the connections between archival
theory and research data management practice.
Author: Guest contributor
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