| Abstract: |
Despite widespread support from policy makers, funding agencies, and
scientific journals, academic researchers rarely make their research data
available to others. At the same time, data sharing in research is attributed
a vast potential for scientific progress. It allows the reproducibility of
study results and the reuse of old data for new research questions. Based on a
systematic review of 98 scholarly papers and an empirical survey among 603
secondary data users, we develop a conceptual framework that explains the
process of data sharing from the primary researcher’s point of view. We show
that this process can be divided into six descriptive categories: Data donor,
research organization, research community, norms, data infrastructure, and
data recipients. Drawing from our findings, we discuss theoretical
implications regarding knowledge creation and dissemination as well as
research policy measures to foster academic collaboration. We conclude that
research data cannot be regarded a knowledge commons, but research policies
that better incentivize data sharing are needed to improve the quality of
research results and foster scientific progress. |
| Keywords: |
ratswd, ratswd working paper, Data Sharing, Academia, Systematic Review, Research Policy, Knowledge Commons, Crowd Science, Commons-based Peer Production |