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    RDM Consultation: Reasons for Sharing Data

    Researchers invest significant effort in their research projects, especially when it involves the collection of primary data. Therefore, it may occasionally lead to some skepticism when it comes to sharing the acquired data.

    However, there are good reasons for researchers to share their research data with the scientific community:

    Sharing Research Data…

    • …advances science as a whole, makes the research of individual researchers more visible,
    • …corresponds to good scientific practice [for more information see Research Ethics].

    For these reasons, the transfer of the research data for re-use purposes is now also…

    • …a part of funding conditions [for more information see Requirements of Research Funders],
    • …a part of the professional associations recommendations,
    • …a part of data policies or open science policies of universities, non-university research institutions and scientific organizations,
    • …a part of requirements for submitting publications in certain journals.

    [Source: Gründe, zu teilen – VerbundFDB (forschungsdaten-bildung.de)]

    In case researchers have not completed their own research yet, or if they need to protect their qualification work, it may be advisable to establish a publication embargo or delay the possibility of the shared research data re-use.

    Alternatively, it is also possible to (initially) publish only the metadata of the dataset and the contact information of the primary researchers. This way, a researcher has a maximum control over the data use.

    In any case, so-called data sharing agreements are established. You can find more information about this in the separate article on relevant legal topics.