The Definition of Reuse

Abstract

The ability to reuse research data is now considered a key benefit for the wider research community. Researchers of all disciplines are confronted with the pressure to share their research data so that it can be reused. The demand for data use and reuse has implications on how we document, publish and share research in the first place, and, perhaps most importantly, it affects how we measure the impact of research, which is commonly a measurement of its use and reuse. It is surprising that research communities, policy makers, etc. have not clearly defined what use and reuse is yet.We postulate that a clear definition of use and reuse is needed to establish better metrics for a comprehensive scholarly record of individuals, institutions, organizations, etc. Hence, this article presents a first definition of reuse of research data. Characteristics of reuse are identified by examining the etymology of the term and the analysis of the current discourse, leading to a range of reuse scenarios that show the complexity of today's research landscape, which has been moving towards a data-driven approach. The analysis underlines that there is no reason to distinguish use and reuse. We discuss what that means for possible new metrics that attempt to cover Open Science practices more comprehensively. We hope that the resulting definition will enable a better and more refined strategy for Open Science.

Open is not enough

“…In this section, we move towards a researcher-centered definition of reproducibility that reflects common concerns of researchers. This approach is in line with findings from van de Sandt et al [188] who analyzed differences between use and reuse in science. They concluded that differences in those terminologies often do not reflect scientific realities and proposed to refer only to scientific use.…”

Factors of trust in data reuse

“…Not many studies have formally defined the term reuse. van de Sandt, Dallmeier-Tiessen, Lavasa, & Petras (2019) argued that the term reuse is a complicated concept and no common definition is proposed across the disciplines yet. Despite the difficulties of proposing agreed definition across the disciplines, researchers generally understand it to indicate the use of data by someone who did not collect it.…”

“…This may be due to the long history of having data reuse practice in the field of health and social science (Clubb, Austin, Geda, & Traugott, 1985). Also, as the previous literature suggested ( van de Sandt, et al, 2019), because the term referred data reuse were varied across the disciplines, other disciplines may not use the term "data reuse" or "secondary data" even when reusing data. Most of them (80.7%) were Caucasian.…”

Alter-Value in Data Reuse: Non-Designated Communities and Creative Processes

“…While the definition of data reuse is a matter of discussion (see van de Sandt, Dallmeier-Tiessen, Lavasa, & Petras, 2019), broadly speaking, data reuse relates to the " […] research in which some or all of the data analyzed were collected by others besides the reuser or members of his/her research team" (Curty, Crowston, Specht, Grant, & Dalton, 2017). Such definitions of data reuse are often based on the assumption that the reuser is part of a specific designated community (as defined by the Open Archival Information System, 2012), usually, a part of the scientific community.…”