As seen in the USGS Data Life-Cycle Model, sharing is an assumed part of the life-cycle.
Shifting toward sharing and "opening" data, represents a transformation in culture. This transformation should influence all choices regarding data collection, analysis, and sharing.
Sharing data can lead to new discoveries and scientific insights. It increases the potential for researchers to build upon existing data, facilitating new findings.
Sharing research data can enhance the impact of your work by increasing its relevance and enabling new scientific discoveries, thereby making your research more influential.
Properly documenting and managing data enhances the reproducibility of research, increasing the validity of research results. This ensures that the data can be trusted and used for future studies.
Data sharing catalyzes new research and scientific discoveries, contributing to the open-access ethos in academia and advancing knowledge within the scientific community.
Planning and addressing data management issues early in the research process can prevent future complications, saving time and resources.
Properly preserving data in repositories ensures its accessibility and discoverability for years to come. This safeguards your research contribution to the broader community.
Many funding agencies, such as the National Science Foundation (NSF), require proper data management, documentation, and sharing as part of grant compliance.
Many journals now require that published articles are accompanied by the underlying research data, enhancing transparency and supporting the verification of research findings.
Reusing and repurposing shared data can lead to unexpected new discoveries and provide valuable raw material for researchers with limited funding resources.
Adapted from: Washington State University Libraries and National Transportation Library
Check out SUNY Fredonia's Open Dataset LibGuide for a repository of open datasets encompassing a range of disciplines.
"Open Data is research data that is freely available on the internet permitting any user to download, copy, re-process, pass to software or use for any other purpose without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself."
There are a huge number of ways to use or analyze any given dataset. What seems like noise to one person could be an important discovery to someone else with a different perspective or analytical technique.
When the data that underlies findings is accessible, researchers can check each other’s work and ensure that conclusions are built upon a firm foundation.
Source: SPARC
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