How often do cancer researchers make their data and code available and what factors are associated with sharing?

Abstract

Background: Various stakeholders are calling for increased availability of data and code from cancer research. However, it is unclear how commonly these products are shared, and what factors are associated with sharing. Our objective was to evaluate how frequently oncology researchers make data and code available, and explore factors associated with sharing. Methods: A cross-sectional analysis of a random sample of 306 articles indexed in PubMed in 2019 presenting original cancer research was performed. Outcomes of interest included the prevalence of affirmative sharing declarations and the rate with which declarations connected to useable data. We also investigated associations between sharing rates and several journal characteristics (e.g., sharing policies, publication models), study characteristics (e.g., cancer rarity, study design), open science practices (e.g., pre-registration, preprinting) and citation rates between 2020-2021. Results: One in five studies declared data were publicly available (95% CI: 15-24%). However, when actual data availability was investigated this percentage dropped to 16% (95% CI: 12-20%), and then to less than 1% (95% CI: 0-2%) when data were checked for compliance with key FAIR principles. While only 4% of articles that used inferential statistics reported code to be available (10/274, 95% CI: 2-6%), the odds of reporting code to be available were 5.6 times higher for researchers who shared data. Compliance with mandatory data and code sharing policies was observed in 48% and 0% of articles, respectively. However, 88% of articles included data availability statements when required. Policies that encouraged data sharing did not appear to be any more effective than not having a policy at all. The only factors associated with higher rates of data sharing were studying rare cancers and using publicly available data to complement original research. Conclusions: Data and code sharing in oncology occurs infrequently, and at a lower frequency than would be expected due to non-compliance with journal policies. There is also a large gap between those declaring data to be available, and those archiving data in a way that facilitates its reuse. We encourage journals to actively check compliance with sharing policies, and researchers consult community accepted guidelines when archiving the products of their research.

A Decade of Progress: Insights of Open Data Practices in Biosciences at the University of Edinburgh

“…Our manual scoring of the openness and FAIRness of data from published papers laid the groundwork for a detailed evaluation, starting with an initial assessment of whether the data was shared (completeness score) before delving into the specifics of how and where it was disseminated. Similar approach was previously applied in the cancer field (20), and is more comprehensive than studies starting evaluation from already shared datasets (9).…”

“…While Roche et al (9) sampled from a popular data repository Dryad, where sampling started from archived datasets, this study involved selecting articles while being blinded as to whether any data was shared. When articles reused previously published data, a similar approach to Hamilton et al (20) was taken. The four criteria -'Completeness', 'Reusability', 'Accessibility', and 'Licence' -were established to assess independent aspects of data sharing.…”

“…Therefore, gaps between data availability claims and actual accessibility are evident (18,19). This discrepancy becomes more apparent when considering the methodologies of past studies (9,20), which predominantly focused on assessing the quality of the data shared, rather than measuring the proportion of available data that was effectively shared Reflecting these evolving standards, the University of Edinburgh updated its Research Data Management Policy in 2021. Initially, in 2011 (21), the policy focused on data integrity, confidentiality, and retention, with Principal Investigators taking the lead in data management.…”

How often do cancer researchers make their data and code available and what factors are associated with sharing?

“…All statistical analyses were performed in R (v4.2.0). All data needed to reproduce the reported analyses have been made publicly available on the Open Science Framework [43].…”