Data for: "Forgotten treasures: the fate of data in animal behavior studies"

Supporting material for the article. Please refer to the file 'read_me_metadata.txt' for detailed information (i.e., metadata) of each file in the dataset. <strong>Abstract. </strong>The majority of publications across many disciplines in biology do not make their data available in repositories. On the other hand, there are several advantages associated with archiving data in open access repositories and technological resources are available to do so. To date no study has estimated the frequency of data from animal behavior publications made available in digital repositories or supplementary materials. In order to evaluate how much data from those studies are available, we surveyed publications from two well-known journals in the field. Since journal policy is an important factor influencing the availability of data from publications, we listed the data policy of journals that publish animal behavior research. We found that only a small proportion of the articles published in 2013 made even part of their data available and journals do not require data to be archived prior or after publication. If not deposited in repositories, data supporting those findings will most likely be lost due to lack of usage, inability to access obsolete storage devices or even the death of the authors. Although it is difficult to appreciate the relevance of data for future studies at the time of a research article's publication, such data may inspire fruitful opportunities that we cannot afford to lose. We discuss the benefits of making data available, review resources for data archiving and provide practical guidelines. We hope that raising awareness about this problem will help foster a data sharing culture among animal behaviorists.

本文配套支撑材料。请查阅`read_me_metadata.txt`文件以获取本数据集内各文件的详细信息（即元数据（metadata））。
<strong>摘要</strong>。当前，生物学诸多分支领域的绝大多数已发表研究均未将相关数据上传至数据仓储（repositories）。尽管将数据归档至开放获取数据仓储具备多重优势，且当前已有成熟的技术资源支持此类操作，但截至目前，尚无研究对动物行为学领域已发表文献的数据在数字仓储或补充材料中的公开频率进行评估。
为评估此类研究中可获取数据的占比，我们针对该领域两份知名期刊的发表文献开展了调研。鉴于期刊政策是影响研究数据公开的关键因素，我们一并梳理了刊载动物行为学研究的期刊的数据管理政策。
调研结果显示，2013年发表的论文中，仅有极小比例的文献公开了部分研究数据，且多数期刊并未要求作者在论文发表前后将数据归档至仓储。若未将数据存入仓储，受限于存储介质过时无法读取、作者离世或缺乏持续维护使用等因素，支撑研究结论的数据大概率会永久遗失。
尽管在论文发表当下，我们难以预判其数据对未来研究的价值，但此类数据或许能催生我们尚未预见的富有成果的研究机遇，因此绝不容轻易流失。本文探讨了公开研究数据的益处，梳理了可用于数据归档的资源，并提供了实操性指南。我们期望通过提升学界对该问题的认知，助力动物行为学研究者群体构建起数据共享文化。