Definition
Data sharing is the practice of making data used for scholarly research available to other investigators. Many funding agencies, institutions, and publication venues have policies regarding data sharing because transparency and openness are considered to be an important part of scientific discovery. Currently in the biomedical field, the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health have implemented data sharing policies that either expect or require scientific researchers to share their data in some way.
Librarians can assist researchers at their institution with data sharing requirements by developing services for data curation and research data management planning. Librarians can also use data sharing as a platform for promoting scholarly communications practices and initiatives such as data publishing and encouraging researchers to follow data citation practices so that they can receive and give credit for published datasets.
Further Resources
Abrams S, Kratz J, Simms S, Strong M, & Willett P. (2016). Dash: Data Sharing Made Easy at the University of California(link is external). International Journal of Digital Curation, 11(1). doi.org/10.2218/ijdc.v11i1.408
Allen C, Lyman KA, & Mcwilliams L. (2014). Data Governance and Data Sharing Agreements for Community-Wide Health Information Exchange : Lessons from the Beacon Communities(link is external). EGEMS, 2(1). dx.doi.org/10.13063%2F2327-9214.1057
Andreoli-Versbach P, Mueller-Langer F. (2014). Open access to data: An ideal professed but not practised(link is external). Research Policy, 43(9), 1621–1633. doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2014.04.008
Ball A, Ashley K, McCann P, Molloy L, & Van den Eynden V. (2014). Show Me The Data: The Pilot UK Research Data Registry(link is external). International Journal of Digital Curation, 9(1). doi.org/10.2218/ijdc.v9i1.307
Beagrie N, Houghton J. (2014). The Value and Impact of Data Sharing and Curation A synthesis of three recent studies of UK research(link is external). Bristol and London, UK.
Berman F, Wilkinson R, & Wood J. (2014). Building Global Infrastructure for Data Sharing and Exchange Through the Research Data Alliance(link is external). D-Lib Magazine, 20(1/2). doi.org/10.1045/january2014-berman
Bishoff C, Johnston L. (2015). Approaches to Data Sharing: An Analysis of NSF Data Management Plans from a Large Research University(link is external). Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication, 3(2), eP1231. doi.org/10.7710/2162-3309.1231
Borgman CL. (2010). Research Data: Who will share what, with whom, when, and why?(link is external) China-North American Library Conference, Beijing, 21.
Carlson J, Stowell-Bracke M. (2013). Data Management and Sharing from the Perspective of Graduate Students: An Examination of the Culture and Practice at the Water Quality Field Station(link is external). Portal: Libraries and the Academy, 13(4), 343–361. doi.org/10.1353/pla.2013.0034
Carroll MW. (2015). Sharing Research Data and Intellectual Property Law: A Primer(link is external). PLOS Biology, 13(8), e1002235. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1002235
Charbonneau DH, Beaudoin JE. (2015). State of Data Guidance in Journal Policies: A Case Study in Oncology(link is external). International Journal of Digital Curation, 10(2). doi.org/10.2218/ijdc.v10i2.375
Cox A, Williamson L. (2015). The 2014 DAF Survey at the University of Sheffield(link is external). International Journal of Digital Curation, 10(1). doi.org/10.2218/ijdc.v10i1.362
Dallmeier-Tiessen S, Darby R, Gitmans K, Lambert S, Matthews B, Mele S, … Wilson M. (2014). Enabling Sharing and Reuse of Scientific Data(link is external). New Review of Information Networking, 19(1), 16–43. doi.org/10.1080/13614576.2014.883936.
Drachen TM, Ellegaard O, Larsen AV, & Fabricius Dorch SB. (2016). Sharing Data Increases Citations(link is external). Liber Quarterly: The Journal of European Research Libraries, 26(3), 67–82. doi.org/10.18352/lq.10149
Drazen JM. (2015). Sharing Individual Patient Data from Clinical Trials(link is external). New England Journal of Medicine, 372(3), 201–202. doi.org/10.1056/NEJMp1415160
Fear K. (2015). Building Outreach on Assessment: Researcher Compliance with Journal Policies for Data Sharing(link is external). Bulletin of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 41(6), 18–21.
Fecher B, Friesike S, & Hebing M. (2015). What Drives Academic Data Sharing?(link is external) PLOS ONE, 10(2), e0118053. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0118053
Gold A. (2007). Cyberinfrastructure, Data, and Libraries, Part 1: A Cyberinfrastructure Primer for Librarians(link is external). D-Lib Magazine, 13(9/10).
Gold A. (2010). Data Curation and Libraries: Short-Term Developments, Long-Term Prospects(link is external).
Herold P. (2015). Data Sharing Among Ecology, Evolution, and Natural Resources scientists: An Analysis of Selected Publications(link is external). Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication, 3(2), eP1244. doi.org/10.7710/2162-3309.1244
Holdren JP. (2013). Increasing Access to the Results of Federally Funded Scientific Research(link is external). Washington, D.C.: Office of Science and Technology Policy.
Kervin K, Michener W, & Cook R. (2013). Common Errors in Ecological Data Sharing(link is external). Journal of eScience Librarianship. doi.org/10.7191/jeslib.2013.1024
Khurshid A, Nauman E, Carton T, & Horswell R. (2014). Louisiana Clinical Data Research Network: establishing an infrastructure for efficient conduct of clinical research(link is external). Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 21(4), 612–614. doi.org/10.1136/amiajnl-2014-002740
Kim KK, Joseph JG, & Ohno-Machado L. (2015). Comparison of consumers’ views on electronic data sharing for healthcare and research(link is external). Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 22(4), 821–830. doi.org/10.1093/jamia/ocv014
Klann JG, Abend A, Raghavan VA, Mandl KD, & Murphy SN. (2016). Data interchange using i2b2(link is external). Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 23(5), 909–915. doi.org/10.1093/jamia/ocv188
Lage K, Losoff B, Maness J. (2011). Receptivity to Library Involvement in Scientific Data Curation: A Case Study at the University of Colorado Boulder(link is external). portal: Libraries and the Academy, 11(4):915–37.
Lougee W, Choudhury S, Gold A, Humphrey C, Humphreys B, Luce R, et al. (2007). Agenda for Developing E-Science in Research Libraries: Final Report and Recommendations to the Scholarly Communication Steering Committee, the Public Policies Affecting Research Libraries Steering Committee, and the Research, Teaching, and Learning Steering Committee(link is external). Washington, D.C.
Merson L, Gaye O, & Guerin PJ. (2016). Avoiding Data Dumpsters--Toward Equitable and Useful Data Sharing(link is external). The New England Journal of Medicine, 374(25), 2414–5. doi.org/10.1056/NEJMp1605148
Michener WK. (2015). Ecological Data Sharing(link is external). Ecological Informatics, 29(1), 33–44. dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoinf.2015.06.010
Osswald A. (2008). E-science and information services: a missing link in the context of digital libraries(link is external). Online Information Review, 32(4):516–23.
Paltoo DN, Rodriguez LL, Feolo M, Gillanders E, Ramos EM, Rutter JL, … Green ED. (2014). Data use under the NIH GWAS Data Sharing Policy and future directions(link is external). Nature Genetics, 46(9), 934–938. doi.org/10.1038/ng.3062
Pepe A, Goodman A, Muench A, Crosas M, & Erdmann C. (2014). How Do Astronomers Share Data? Reliability and Persistence of Datasets Linked in AAS Publications and a Qualitative Study of Data Practices among US Astronomers(link is external). PLoS ONE, 9(8), e104798. dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0104798
Pronk TE, Wiersma PH, Weerden A van, & Schieving F. (2015). A Game Theoretic Analysis of Research Data Sharing(link is external). PeerJ, 3, e1242. doi.org/10.7717/peerj.1242
Roche DG, Lanfear R, Binning SA, Haff TM, Schwanz LE, Cain KE, … Kruuk LEB. (2014). Troubleshooting Public Data Archiving: Suggestions to Increase Participation(link is external). PLOS Biology, 12(1), e1001779. dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001779
Shen Y. (2015). Research Data Sharing and Reuse Practices of Academic Faculty Researchers: A Study of the Virginia Tech Data Landscape(link is external). International Journal of Digital Curation, 10(2). doi.org/10.2218/ijdc.v10i2.359
Strasser C, Kunze J, Abrams S, & Cruse P. (2014). DataUp: A Tool to Help Researchers Describe and Share Tabular Data(link is external). F1000Research, 3(6). dx.doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.3-6.v2
Sturges P, Bamkin M, Anders JHS, Hubbard B, Hussain A, & Heeley M. (2015). Research Data Sharing: Developing a Stakeholder-Driven Model for Journal Policies(link is external). Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 66(12), 2445–2455.
Swauger S, Vision TJ. (2015). What Factors Influence Where Researchers Deposit their Data? A Survey of Researchers Submitting to Data Repositories(link is external). International Journal of Digital Curation, 10(1). doi.org/10.2218/ijdc.v10i1.289
Tenopir C, Allard S, Douglass K, Aydinoglu AU, Wu L, Read E, … Frame M. (2011). Data Sharing by Scientists: Practices and Perceptions(link is external). PLoS ONE, 6(6), e21101. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0021101
Tenopir C, Dalton ED, Allard S, Frame M, Pjesivac I, Birch B, … Dorsett K. (2015). Changes in data sharing and data reuse practices and perceptions among scientists worldwide(link is external). PLoS ONE, 10(8). doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0134826
Tudur Smith C, Hopkins C, Sydes MR, Woolfall K, Clarke M, Murray G, & Williamson P. (2015). How should individual participant data (IPD) from publicly funded clinical trials be shared?(link is external) BMC Medicine, 13, 298. doi.org/10.1186/s12916-015-0532-z
Van Noorden R. (2013). Data-sharing: Everything on display(link is external). Nature, 500, 243–245. doi.org/10.1038/nj7461-243a
Vlaeminck S. (2013). Data management in scholarly journals and possible roles for libraries–Some insights from EDaWaX(link is external). LIBER Quarterly, 23(1), 48–79. doi.org/10.18352/lq.8082
Wallis J. (2014). Data Producers Courting Data Reusers: Two Cases from Modeling Communities(link is external). International Journal of Digital Curation, 9(1). doi.org/10.2218/ijdc.v9i1.304
Wallis JC, Rolando E, & Borgman CL. (2013). If We Share Data, Will Anyone Use Them? Data Sharing and Reuse in the Long Tail of Science and Technology(link is external). PLoS ONE, 8(7), e67332.
Williams SC. (2013). Data Sharing Interviews with Crop Sciences Faculty: Why They Share Data and How the Library Can Help(link is external). Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship, 72.