Managing scientific data as public assets: Data sharing practices and policies among full‐time government employees

Abstract

This paper examines how scientists working in government agencies in the U.S. are reacting to the "ethos of sharing" government-generated data. For scientists to leverage the value of existing government data sets, critical data sets must be identified and made as widely available as possible. However, government data sets can only be leveraged when policy makers first assess the value of data, in much the same way they decide the value of grants for research outside government. We argue that legislators should also remove structural barriers to interoperability by funding technical infrastructure according to issue clusters rather than administrative programs. As developers attempt to make government data more accessible through portals, they should consider a range of other nontechnical constraints attached to the data. We find that agencies react to the large number of constraints by mostly posting their data on their own websites only rather than in data portals that can facilitate sharing. Despite the nontechnical constraints, we find that scientists working in government agencies exercise some autonomy in data decisions, such as data documentation, which determine whether or not the data can be widely shared. Fortunately, scientists indicate a willingness to share the data they collect or maintain. However, we argue further that a complete measure of access should also consider the normative decisions to collect (or not) particular data.

Data sharing for the advancement of science: Overcoming barriers for citizen scientists

“…Members' concerns about protecting the environment and data quality, that is, not wanting to be associated with inaccurate data in repositories, indicates a level of responsibility at least in the case of some citizen scientists. These concerns are not dissimilar to those of professional scientists in the academy and government (Douglass, Allard, Tenopir, Wu, & Frame, 2014;Tenopir et al, 2011). For example, both communities (citizen and professional scientists) report concerns about quality, which indicate that responsibility in this regard is felt by professionals and nonprofessionals alike.…”

Research Data Sharing: Practices and Attitudes of Geophysicists

“…Tenopir, Dalton, et al (2015) and Aleixandre-Benavent et al (2016) argued that this should motivate younger academics seeking promotion and tenure to share more of their data. Multiple large, federally funded research projects from countries in the European Union, Canada, and the United Kingdom have demonstrated a positive impact on research when certain data-sharing practices are mandated (Douglass et al, 2014;Kim & Burns, 2016;Nugroho et al, 2015).…”

Data journals: A survey

“…Although there is an almost universal agreement on the benefits of "data sharing and reuse" as a means to accelerate science performance, there are a number of barriers hindering the realization of this objective in a systematic and effective way (Borgman, 2011;Pampel & Dallmeier-Tiessen, 2014;Tenopir et al, 2011). These barriers are methodological, legal, and technical and are often related to the lack of incentives for researchers to share their data (Asher et al, 2013;Bourne, 2010;Bourne et al, 2012;Douglass, Allard, Tenopir, Wu, & Frame, 2014). The effects of these obstacles on science is deleterious; for example, Vines et al (2014) demonstrate how the availability of research data was strongly affected by an article's age when no policy was in place.…”