Strategies to Build Community and Develop a Culture around Data Publication and Reuse in Natural Hazards Engineering and the Social Sciences

This publication includes the abstract and presentation to the Open Repositories Conference 2022. To remain relevant and expand community, open data repositories must engage users, increase data publications and promote their reuse, and improve services. With these goals, in collaboration with groups within the Network of Natural Hazards Research Infrastructure (NHERI). DesignSafe has developed interconnected metrics and data promotion strategies. These include (1) in-depth citation analysis, (2) interviews with users, (3) publication of data stories, (4) yearly data awards and naming data ambassadors, (5) publish-your-data workshops, and (6) the analysis of metrics to assess growth and pace of data publication and usage. These activities support a more robust understanding of the user community and their behaviors towards publication and reuse across different disciplines. Their results allow focusing educational activities and prioritizing development regarding data access and usability. In addition, they enable development of realistic publication and reuse benchmarks and to target gaps in our program. They are also used to report to funders and communicate with other stakeholders. Importantly, they are helping to drive a cultural shift in natural hazards engineering and social sciences toward data. This presentation describes the results of these strategies to identify what works and what needs to be improved. The presentation is of interest to repository administrators and curators to learn about different components of a multi-pronged data promotion and evaluation strategy. Data producers and consumers can hear about the role of repositories and their research networks promoting research outputs and building data culture.