Take part in the PLOS Research Data Survey!
What are your priorities for data sharing?
PLOS (The Public Library of Science) is a nonprofit publisher and advocacy organisation on a mission to lead a transformation in research communication, engaging in debate about science and medicine.
The organisation has been working to identify the main issues faced by researchers concerning open research and, in order to understand more about researchers’ priorities with regards to sharing research data, they have launched a new study.
If you are a researcher residing in Europe or the United States who has shared or reused research data, please take a few minutes to take part in the survey.
The results of the survey will also help determine if and how well researchers’ needs are met by existing tools and services for sharing research data, and inform future PLOS initiatives and partnerships.
Why do we need another survey?
Researchers’ experiences and attitudes on sharing research data are already well studied. Considering the results of numerous studies, when it comes to data sharing, researchers are especially concerned about misuse and scooping. Right after these, other popular worries are related to the more practical matters about copyright and licensing, as well as the time and effort required to make research data openly available.
On the basis of prior research and discussions with several different groups of researchers over the last few months, PLOS concluded that there is considerable evidence for various cultural and practical concerns with sharing of research data, and growing evidence of how sharing and reusing data can benefit research, the economy and researchers’ careers. Nevertheless, there is less certainty about how important each of these problems are, and if and how well existing tools, products, and services help solve these problems.
Data sharing, research data, and open data are very important, but there is more that can be done to enable research data sharing and reuse, which may help realise more of its benefits. PLOS expects that this study will help identify researchers’ priorities, eventually guiding the priorities for new initiatives.
We invite researchers to complete the survey, reminding you that PLOS plans to share data from the survey publicly in the future.
The survey is open until 26 May 2020. Take part in the survey now!
For more information about the survey, visit the PLOS blog.
