Data sharing and re-use: Researcher practices, attitudes and needs - 2016

Between November 2016 and February 2017, FORS conducted a brief survey to better understand researchers’ attitudes, practices, and needs specifically regarding data sharing and re-use. The insight gained from this survey will be used to improve existing services and prioritize new ones. Here are some key findings: Across disciplines, around 80 percent researchers generally consider the sharing of research data to be very important. More than half of the respondents were involved in the production of both quantitative and qualitative data. More than two-thirds of the researchers stated that they had already shared data. Data sharing is most common amongst colleagues inside the same institution and within researchers’ broader networks. Conditions most cited for sharing data include being informed about the projects that other researchers carry out based on one’s data and the desire to be cited for the use of one’s data by others. Re-using quantitative data is much more common than re-using qualitative data, at the same time most researchers indicated that they would consider re-using qualitative data for either their own research and/or for teaching purposes. There is a large interest in and strong need for additional services and materials in the area of data management, especially for data management planning, data preparation and cleaning, and security, storage and backup.