The State of Open Data survey continues to provide a detailed and sustained insight into the motivations, challenges, perceptions, and behaviors of researchers towards open data. Now in its ninth year, the survey is a collaboration between Figshare, Digital Science and Springer Nature. Uniquely this year we wanted to go beyond understanding the thoughts and attitudes of researchers and, for the first time, look into what they were actually doing.

By combining three different data sources; Dimensions, Springer Nature Data Availability Statements (DAS), and the Make Data Count and DataCite Data Citation Corpus, we reveal linkages between peer reviewed published research and data sets being made available. We believe this jump from understanding what people say they are going to do to actively showing what they are doing, is an important step in driving change and understanding how to bridge the gap between policy and practice in open data sharing.

This report serves several purposes. Firstly, it confirms that the qualitative survey data of the State of Open Data over the last 9 years has been accurate when compared to quantitative actions of researchers worldwide. Secondly, it provides a pathway which can be taken to use data to create the carrots and rewards metrics for researchers who publish their open data.

Mark Hahnel

VP Open Research, Digital Science

Key findings

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Webinar: The State of Open Data 2024 – Bridging policy and practice in data sharing

Even though we went beyond our usual survey results analysis for 2024 with this new style of analysis, we did conduct our annual survey. The raw survey data from 2024 has been made openly available on Figshare.

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2024 state of Open Data survey data

Even though we went beyond our usual survey results analysis for 2024 with this new style of analysis, we did conduct our annual survey. The raw survey data from 2024 has been made openly available on Figshare.

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Bridging policy and practice data set

We have made some of the data we used for our analysis openly available, so that it can be explored and filtered for different contexts.

Learn more

The post The state of Open Data 2024: Special report appeared first on Digital Science.

Latest report in the State of Open Data series, released by partners Digital Science, Figshare and Springer Nature, provides quantitative analysis on growth of open data sharing globally

Monday 2 December 2024

New analysis suggests that open data practice is now on the edge of becoming a standard, recognized and supported scholarly output, globally.

As part of the latest in the State of Open Data series, produced by partners Digital Science, Figshare and Springer Nature, direct author-sharing practices have been analyzed from a funder, country and institutional level. The resulting data shows key trends driving successful open sharing and the growth of global adoption, while also enabling recommendations to be drawn to help bridge the remaining gaps between policy and practice.

The findings have been published in The State of Open Data 2024 special report: Bridging policy and practice in data sharing.

Report co-author Mark Hahnel, VP of Open Research at Digital Science and Founder of Figshare, said:

“Open research is now officially an inevitability. If we look at open research in general and closed vs open publishing, there is now more open publishing than closed. We’re now in a place where we consistently see around 2 million datasets being published every year; this is the same amount of articles that we saw published annually in the year 2000. This report provides a valuable insight into what is really driving this data sharing and enables us, as a community, to see what is working and what we need to do more of to both sustain these figures and increase them.”

Key findings from the report show that: 

• More universities now have data sharing policies as part of their efforts to promote open science and research transparency.

There has been a strong growth in papers linking to data from universities globally since 2010. Although there are differences regionally, with a spread of just 5-10% in data sharing policies, this is less significant than the  number of articles (>85%) that were previously not linked to data.

• The success of open data initiatives reflects a broader policy environment. However, having policies in place is not sufficient on its own.

Policies for open data sharing are now more consistent globally, which has contributed to a general decline in “on request” sharing with reductions ranging from 1-9% in all but one country – i.e. researchers are now sharing more ‘naturally’. However, there are fluctuations in practice based on the type of research being funded and geolocation, and even where policies are in place, there is not necessarily a  significant rise in repository sharing. 

• Global uptake of open research practice has increased, but is impacted by country-level motivations for data sharing.

The United States has the lowest percentage of researchers that are motivated through citation of their data (4.88%) while having the highest percentage being motivated by funder requirement (10.23%). Conversely, Ethiopia and Japan show similarity with a higher importance of motivation through citation of their data (9.3% and 14.8% respectively) and a similar low importance of motivation from funder requirement (at 2.33% and 1.67% respectively).

• Resource disparities remain.

Progress in some countries is hindered by limitations in internet connectivity, institutional support, and a lack of awareness. Across the 10 regions analyzed*, the US, UK, Germany, and France demonstrated similar trends in repository sharing, averaging around a 25% sharing rate. However, for Brazil, Ethiopia and India the sharing rate remains significantly below a quarter. 

• Sustained efforts are needed to respond to the challenges in diverse research areas.

A wide range of disciplines are now being covered by the growing number of data availability statement (DAS) policies, but many still lack established community practices, suitable repositories, and/or the ability to handle sensitive data which is difficult to share. 

Report co-author Graham Smith, Open Data Programme Manager, Springer Nature said: 

“Our aim with this report is to help open up the conversations we need to have around open data and research practices. Providing global data that helps to recognise and address the disparities in practice, we can identify as a sector the targeted and practical next steps needed to further accelerate the global adoption of open data practices. In doing so, we can foster a more equitable and accessible research ecosystem, where data sharing is valued, rewarded, and ultimately becomes a cornerstone of academic success – key if we are to move to a fully open science future.”

This year’s focused report combines three different data sources: Dimensions, Springer Nature Data Availability Statements, and the Make Data Count and DataCite Data Citation Corpus, to look at the linkages between peer-reviewed published research and data sets being made available. The combination of these sources has enabled patterns to be analysed around how researchers are making their data open, to what standard, and better understand the real motivations for data sharing, to help inform how we as a community can effect positive change.  

Alongside the analysis of researcher actions, the report also suggests four ways in which to continue to drive progress forwards: consistent introduction of a four-step process of change (policy, mandate compliance and measurement); enhanced collaboration for equitable access to knowledge; an increase in training and identification of the regions that need more targeted support; and greater acknowledgement, by all, of the nuances by discipline. 

The results of this year’s analysis will be discussed in a webinar on 23 January 2025. Register for the webinar here and join the conversation at #StateOfOpenData.

All data and analysis can be accessed in the report hosted on Figshare here: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.27337476

*The 10 countries included in the country-level analysis were: Botswana, Brazil, China, Ethiopia, France, Germany, India, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

About Figshare

Figshare, a Digital Science Solution, is a provider of institutional repository infrastructure. Our solutions help institutions share, showcase and manage their research outputs in a discoverable, citable, reportable and transparent way. We support institutions in meeting the growing demands for research to become open, freer, FAIRer and more connected. We provide the flexibility and control for you to create research management workflows that work for you. We take care of implementation, updates, security and maintenance – ensuring you and your researchers can always depend on your repository, leaving you to focus on what really matters; research and its impact on the world.

About Digital Science

Digital Science is an AI-focused technology company providing innovative solutions to complex challenges faced by researchers, universities, funders, industry and publishers. We work in partnership to advance global research for the benefit of society. Through our brands – Altmetric, Dimensions, Figshare, IFI CLAIMS Patent Services, metaphacts, OntoChem, Overleaf, ReadCube, Scismic, Symplectic, and Writefull – we believe when we solve problems together, we drive progress for all. Visit digital-science.com and follow Digital Science on Bluesky, on X or on LinkedIn.

About Springer Nature

At Springer Nature, we are proud to be part of progress, working together with the communities we serve to share knowledge and bring greater understanding to the world. Every day our books, journals, platforms, and technology solutions reach millions of people; helping researchers to uncover new ideas and share their discoveries, health professionals to stay at the forefront of medical science, and educators to advance learning. Through our leading brands, trusted for more than 180 years, and our steadfast commitment to the most rigorous standards, we help accelerate solutions to the world’s urgent challenges and inspire generations to come. For more information, please visit about.springernature.com and @SpringerNature.

Media contacts

David Ellis, Press, PR & Social Manager, Digital Science: Mobile +61 447 783 023, d.ellis@digital-science.com

Laura Day, Marketing Director, Figshare: laura@figshare.com

Theodore HibbertGreaves, Communications Officer, Springer Nature: theodore.hibbertgreaves@springernature.com

The post New report suggests open data on edge of becoming a recognized global standard for scholarly output appeared first on Digital Science.

The “London Enterprise Project” at King’s College London gives students the opportunity to undertake an active enquiry project working with an external partner organization in the community. Digital Science and Figshare were happy to participate and were delighted to be partnered with Matthew, Kith and Ria. Matthew is excited to explore the world of data analysis and gain an understanding of the benefits of Open Data. Kith aims to contribute to science in an open and accessible manner to aid the research community. Ria is interested in the different global policies and is delighted to contribute to advancing scientific research. 

Figshare hosts an annual “State of Open Data (SOOD)” Report where it aims to provide insight into researchers around the world regarding their attitudes towards and experiences of open data containing 6,091 usable data. For this project, we decided to take the time to dig deeper into the results of the reports to see where the trends were not consistent based on different demographics. 

In analyzing answers to questions about the researchers themselves, research data collection and curation, support for research, we began to notice the data between the top 10 countries showed a consistent divergence with some common names repeatedly popping up. As such, this report is “The Global Lens: Highlighting national nuances in researchers’ attitudes to open data”.

You can begin to see the trends and the differences in some of the data we started to uncover below. When researchers answered the question on the survey “Thinking about the country in which you are currently working, how supportive are you of the idea of a national mandate for making research data more openly  available?” – In Ethiopia, 48% of researchers strongly favour, and 77% support, a national mandate. In the U.S., 61%  support, with 18% opposed. In Japan, 14% are strongly in favour, and 42% support, but a majority (58%) are neutral or against, with 17% opposed.

When creating a visual representation of the statistics, a common pattern emerged, the contrast between Ethiopia, Japan and USA on their view on Open Data. 

Our team tries to uncover the “why” behind various countries’ perspectives on open data. We look at each country’s history of research practices, funding, and policies. Exploring these factors individually was not sufficient to gain a thorough understanding. Thus, using the Digital Science network, we consulted experts that have worked or have experience in each country to validate our findings and deepen our insights into the world of researchers and open data.

The post Three countries. Three different views on open data. appeared first on Digital Science.

Tuesday 5 March 2024

A new report – part of The State of Open Data series – provides real-world insights into how the research community is responding to the challenges of data sharing, including support needed for researchers and the importance of building a stronger collaborative approach to open data and research.

From theory to practice: Case studies and commentary from libraries, publishers, funders and industry has been published by Digital Science, Figshare and Springer Nature, following on from the release of their State of Open Data Report 2023 and its key recommendations. 

From theory to practice is the first time in the nine-year history of The State of Open Data that a supplementary publication has expanded upon the main report’s years of survey results about open data, involving tens of thousands of researchers globally.

Each case study and commentary is told from the perspective of a research stakeholder group:

• Funding bodies: The NIH Generalist Repository Ecosystem Initiative: meeting community needs for FAIR data sharing and discovery
• Scholarly Publishers: Operationalize data policies through collaborative approaches – the momentum is now
• University Libraries: One size does not fit all: an investigation into how institutional libraries are tailoring support to their researchers’ needs
• Industry: How Open Pharma supports responsible data sharing for pharma research publications.

The authors of From theory to practice include representatives from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) – the largest public funder of biomedical research in the world – and NIH Office of Data Science Strategy, writing alongside publishers such as Wiley, Elsevier, Taylor & Francis, and STM Publishing Group, academic institutions the University of Oxford, Leeds Beckett University, University of Sheffield, Graz University of Technology, Northwestern University, as well as Oxford PharmaGenesis, and many others.

A key theme of the report is that collaboration is critical to supporting researchers, promoting data sharing and fostering open research. Such an example is the NIH Generalist Repository Ecosystem Initiative (GREI), bringing together generalist data repositories in a kind of “coopetition” but with a consistent, cohesive approach that benefits researchers.

Another collaborative approach is highlighted by Open Pharma – a member-led, non-profit, multi-sponsor collaboration – which states clearly its aim to build even stronger partnerships in the hopes of ensuring that pharma-sponsored published research is transparent, accountable, accessible and discoverable.

Mark Hahnel, VP Open Research at Digital Science and founder of Figshare, says: “By sharing their case studies, the authors of From theory to practice enhance the experience of The State of Open Data 2023’s key findings and recommendations. Here we see how some of those recommendations are being put into practice, and the effort being made to ensure open research has a robust, meaningful, sustainable, and impactful future.”

Graham Smith, Open Data Programme Manager, Springer Nature, says: “The State of Open Data 2023 deliberately took a more analytical approach to the survey data than in previous years. Our new report – From theory to practice – provides essential context from key stakeholder groups within our research community. These case studies are a strong illustration of open research implementation, giving us greater insight into how to best support global researchers in the adoption of open science practice.”

The full report, From theory to practice: Case studies and commentary from libraries, publishers, funders and industry, can be found on Figshare: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.25232899

About Digital Science

Digital Science is an AI-focused technology company providing innovative solutions to complex challenges faced by researchers, universities, funders, industry and publishers. We work in partnership to advance global research for the benefit of society. Through our brands – Altmetric, Dimensions, Figshare, ReadCube, Symplectic, IFI CLAIMS Patent Services, Overleaf, Writefull, OntoChem, Scismic and metaphacts – we believe when we solve problems together, we drive progress for all. Visit www.digital-science.com and follow @digitalsci on X or on LinkedIn.

About Figshare

Figshare is a repository solution for institutions. Its infrastructure and global community provide institutions with a platform for their researchers to share and preserve their research outputs – including large datasets – in a findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR) way. Complete with altmetrics and citation data, researchers get credit for all their outputs. Figshare is part of Digital Science. Visit www.figshare.com  and follow @figshare on X or LinkedIn.

About Springer Nature

For over 180 years Springer Nature has been advancing discovery by providing the best possible service to the whole research community. We help researchers uncover new ideas, make sure all the research we publish is significant, robust and stands up to objective scrutiny, that it reaches all relevant audiences in the best possible format, and can be discovered, accessed, used, re-used and shared. We support librarians and institutions with innovations in technology and data; and provide quality publishing support to societies.

As a research publisher, Springer Nature is home to trusted brands including Springer, Nature Portfolio, BMC, Palgrave Macmillan and Scientific American. For more information, please visit springernature.com and @SpringerNature

Media contacts

Katie Baker, Head of Communications, Springer Nature: katie.baker@springernature.com

David Ellis, Press, PR & Social Manager, Digital Science: Mobile +61 447 783 023, d.ellis@digital-science.com

The post Collaboration essential to meet open data challenges, says new report appeared first on Digital Science.

Digital Science, Figshare and Springer Nature are proud to publish The State of Open Data 2023. Now in its eighth year, the survey is the longest-running longitudinal study into researchers’ attitudes towards open data and data sharing. 

The 2023 survey saw over 6,000 responses and the report that has now been published takes an in-depth look at the responses and purposefully takes a much more analytical approach than has been seen in previous years, unveiling unprecedented insights.

Five key takeaways from The State of Open Data 2023

Support is not making its way to those who need it

Over three-quarters of respondents had never received any support with making their data openly available. 

One size does not fit all

Variations in responses from different subject expertise and geographies highlight a need for a more nuanced approach to research data management support globally. 

Challenging stereotypes

Are later career academics really opposed to progress? The results of the 2023 survey indicate that career stage is not a significant factor in open data awareness or support levels. 

Credit is an ongoing issue

For eight years running, our survey has revealed a recurring concern among researchers: the perception that they don’t receive sufficient recognition for openly sharing their data. 

AI awareness hasn’t translated to action

For the first time, this year we asked survey respondents to indicate if they were using ChatGPT or similar AI tools for data collection, processing and metadata creation. 

Diving deeper into the data than ever before 

This year, we dive deeper into the data than ever before and look at the differing opinions of our respondents when we compare their regions, career stages, job titles and subject areas of expertise. 

Figshare founder and CEO Mark Hahnel said of this approach, “It feels like the right time to do this. Whilst a global funder push towards FAIR data has researchers globally moving in the same direction, it is important to recognize the subtleties in researchers’ behaviors based on variables in who they are and where they are.”

This year features extensive analysis of the survey results data and provides an in-depth and unique view of attitudes towards open data. 

This analysis provided some key insights; notably that researchers at all stages of their careers share similar enthusiasm for open data, are motivated by shared incentives and struggle to overcome the same obstacles. 

These results are encouraging and challenge the stereotype that more experienced academics are opposed to progress in the space and that those driving progress are primarily early career researchers. 

We were also able to look into the nuanced differences in responses from different regions and subject areas of expertise, illuminating areas for targeted outreach and support. These demographic variations also led us to issue a recommendation to the academic research community to look to understand the ‘state of open data’ in their specific setting.  

Benchmarking attitudes towards the application of AI 

In light of the intense focus on artificial intelligence (AI) and its application this year, for the first time, we decided to ask our survey respondents if they were using any AI tools for data collection, processing or metadata collection. 

The most common answer to all three questions was,“I’m aware of these tools but haven’t considered it.”

AI awareness hasn’t translated to action

For ther first time, respondents were asked if they’re using AI to assist with data collection and metadata creation.

Although the results don’t yet tell a story, we’ve taken an important step in benchmarking how researchers are currently using AI in the data-sharing process. Within our report, we hear from Niki Scaplehorn and Henning Schoenenberger from Springer Nature in their piece ‘AI and open science: the start of a beautiful relationship?’ as they share some thoughts on what the future could hold for research data and open science more generally in the age of AI. 

We are looking forward to evaluating the longitudinal response trends for this survey question in years to come as the fast-moving space of AI and its applications to various aspects of the research lifecycle accelerate farther ahead. 

Recommendations for the road ahead 

In our report, we have shared some recommendations that take the findings of our more analytical investigation and use them to inform action points for various stakeholders in the community. This is an exciting step for The State of Open Data, as we more explicitly encourage real-world action from the academic community when it comes to data-sharing and open data. 

Understanding the state of open data in our specific settings: Owing to the variations in responses from different geographies and areas of expertise, we’re encouraging the academic community to investigate the ‘state of open data’ in their specific research setting, to inform tailored and targeted support. 

Credit where credit’s due: For eight years running, our respondents have repeatedly reported that they don’t feel researchers get sufficient credit for sharing their data. Our recommendation asks stakeholders to consider innovative approaches that encourage data re-use and ultimately greater recognition. 

Help and guidance for the greater good: The same technical challenges and concerns that pose a barrier to data sharing transcend different software and disciplines. Our recommendation suggests that support should move beyond specific platform help and instead tackle the bigger questions of open data and open science practices. 

Making outreach inclusive: Through our investigation of the 2023 survey results, we saw that the stage of an academic’s career was not a significant factor in determining attitudes towards open data and we saw consensus between early career researchers and more established academics. Those looking to engage research communities should be inclusive and deliberate with their outreach, engaging those who have not yet published their first paper as well as those who first published over 30 years ago. 

What’s next for The State of Open Data?  

The State of Open Data 2023 report is a deliberate change from our usual format; usually, our report has contributed pieces authored by open data stakeholders around the globe. This year, we’ve changed our approach and we are beginning with the publication of this first report, which looks at the survey data through a closer lens than before. We’ve compared different subsets of the data in a way we haven’t before, in an effort to provide more insights and actionable data for the community.

In early 2024, we’ll be releasing a follow-up report, with a selection of contributed pieces from global stakeholders, reflecting on the survey results in their context. Using the results showcased in this first report as a basis, it’s our hope that this follow-up report will apply different contexts to these initial findings and bring new insights and ideas. 

In the meantime, we’re hosting two webinars to celebrate the launch of our first report and share the key takeaways. In our first session, The State of Open Data 2023: The Headlines, we’ll be sharing a TL;DR summary of the full report; our second session, The State of Open Data 2023: In Conversation, will convene a panel of global experts to discuss the survey results. 

You can sign up for both sessions here: 

The State of Open Data 2023: The Headlines

The State of Open Data 2023: In Conversation

The post The State of Open Data 2023: A more analytical approach provides unparalleled insights appeared first on Digital Science.

A collaboration between Digital Science, Figshare and Springer Nature

Since the publication of our main 2023 whitepaper, we have published two follow-up reports that each aim to provide additional perspective to The State of Open Data survey results. 

The first, From theory to practice, collates a selection of case studies that offer real-life perspectives on the opportunities and challenges of sharing research data openly. 

The second, The global lens, takes a closer look at survey responses from three different countries, Ethiopia, Japan and the United States. This report aims to uncover the “why” behind various countries’ perspectives on open data.

The state of Open Data 2023 report 

The State of Open Data 2023 deliberately takes a more analytical approach to the survey data than in previous years. With more data surfaced, the 2023 report provides unique and unparalleled insights into researchers’ attitudes towards and interactions with open data and data sharing. 

The report digs into the survey responses and looks at differing trends when comparing respondents’ geographies and other demographic factors. Using these insights, we take a look towards the future and offer some recommendations to the academic community.

Read the report

Highlights

• Support is not making its way to those who need it
  Over three-quarters of respondents had never received support with making their data openly available. 
• One size does not fit all
  Variations in responses from different subject expertise and geographies highlight a need for a more nuanced approach to research data management support globally. 
• Challenging stereotypes
  Are later career academics really opposed to progress? The results of the 2023 survey indicate that career stage is not a significant factor in open data awareness or support levels. 
• Credit is an ongoing issue
  For eight years running, our survey has revealed a recurring concern among researchers: the perception that they don’t receive sufficient recognition for openly sharing their data.
• AI awareness hasn’t translated to action
  For the first time, this year we asked survey respondents to indicate if they were using ChatGPT or similar AI tools for data collection, processing and metadata collection.

From theory to practice

This new supplementary report offers real-life perspectives on the opportunities and challenges of sharing research data openly, giving us unique viewpoints as told by members of our research community – industry, funders, academic institutions, and publisher

For the first time in the history of The State of Open Data comes a supplementary report that expands upon the results of our years of surveys. From theory to practice offers real-life perspectives on the opportunities and challenges of sharing research data openly, giving us unique viewpoints as told by members of our research community – industry, funders, academic institutions, and publishers.

By sharing their case studies, the authors of this report enhance the experience of The State of Open Data 2023’s key findings and recommendations. Here we see how some of those recommendations are being put into practice, and the effort being made to ensure open research has a robust, meaningful, sustainable, and impactful future.

The State of Open Data 2023 deliberately took a more analytical approach to the survey data than in previous years. From theory to practice provides essential context that any member of the research community might recognize, and wish to learn from and emulate.

Read the report

The global lens

In an effort to emphasise the depth of the data that is made openly available by The State of Open Data survey, we are delighted to release a re-analysis by undergraduates at Kings College London: The Global Lens: Highlighting national nuances in researchers attitudes to open data.

As the title alludes to, this report takes a deep dive into the differences in responses from researchers based in different countries. The report focuses on Ethiopia, Japan and the United States to demonstrate that global trends don’t always align with national trends.

Read the report

The post The State of Open Data 2023 appeared first on Digital Science.

Surveying over 6000 researchers worldwide, the report from Digital Science, Figshare and Springer Nature provides key evidence of the persisting challenges associated with open data sharing as well as the potential impact of future technologies.

Tuesday 14 November 2023

In the eighth annual The State of Open Data report released today, almost three quarters of surveyed researchers overwhelmingly said they are still not getting the support they need to share their data openly. Such data highlights the increased need for greater community collaboration and tools to support researchers in the move to sustainable open science practices.

For the remaining 23% of respondents who had sought and received support with data sharing, the support primarily came from internal sources (colleague/supervisor – 61%), followed by institutional libraries (31%), research office / in-house institutional expertise (26%), publishers (21%) and funders (17%).

“The State of Open Data Report has become a unique, long-term resource chronicling the establishment of open data, attitudes towards it, and researchers’ experiences of data sharing,” said Daniel Hook, CEO of Digital Science. “It’s my hope that readers of the report will not only better understand what the research community is experiencing and achieving now, but what the opportunities are for the future.”

Harsh Jegadeesan, Chief Publishing Officer, Springer Nature added: “By better understanding researchers’ motivations around open research we, as a community, can clearly see the roles we all need to play in driving accessible research forwards and harnessing the power of emerging technologies to move towards greater open science. Ensuring easy and open access to all parts of research supports accessibility, usability and reusability – and this is key in helping to ensure research can be built upon and gets into the hands of those that can effect change to tackle the world’s most challenging issues.”

Over 6000 researchers responded globally, with the highest proportion of responses from India (12%), China (11%) and the United States (9%). For the first time, this year we asked respondents about their experiences of using artificial intelligence (AI) to collect and share data. At a time when almost three-quarters of researchers surveyed say they have never received any support with making their data openly available, looking at the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies for supporting the data-sharing process and benchmarking current attitudes may enable stakeholders across the research ecosystem to consider the future role that AI could play in the research process. 

Other key findings from this year’s report show that:

• 60% of respondents believe that they receive too little credit for sharing their data – credit remains an ongoing concern for researchers and one that has reoccurred across The State of Open Data reports for the past 8 years – hindering the promotion of open science and sustainable data sharing practices by undermining incentives, trust, and collaboration;
• We need a more nuanced global approach to research data management – one size does not fit all. For example, there was a general consensus in favor of a national mandate for open research data (64%), with respondents from India and Germany displaying higher levels of support (both 71%) compared to other countries.
• Career stage is not a significant factor in open data awareness or support levels – more inclusive outreach is needed when organizing discussions, forums and panels in the open research space.
• AI awareness has not yet been translated into action – while almost half of respondents were aware of generative AI tools for data collection, processing, and metadata creation, most are not yet using them.

Speaking of this year’s findings Graham Smith, Open Data Program Manager, Springer Nature, said: “Researchers publishing in the last year are significantly more likely to share data due to a funder requirement than those publishing earlier. At Springer Nature we are taking concrete action to encourage researchers to share their data such as with our single data policy and requiring data availability statements. This, we believe, will help authors in opening up their data for further reuse and interrogation.” 

Founder and CEO of Figshare Mark Hahnel said: “With this year’s report we have seen progress, alongside ever-recurrent themes. But we have also investigated further to see if there is greater consistency or indeed, clear disparities in responses across different countries, research subjects and career stages. Whilst a global funder push towards FAIR data has researchers globally moving in the same direction, it is important to recognize the subtleties in researchers’ behaviors based on variables in who they are and where they are.”

To build on this further this year also sees the first publication of a partner report by the Computer Network Information Center (CNIC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, looking at open data in China. That report is due out on 30 November 2023.

Springer Nature is a proactive partner to the research community, pioneering new approaches to data sharing and committed to supporting researchers in making data sharing the new normal. Learn more about Springer Nature’s engagement towards open data here.

The full State of Open Data report can be accessed on Figshare: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.24428194

Update (30 November): The China version of the 2023 State of Open Data report is available on Figshare: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.24638301.v1

Join in the conversation at #StateOfOpenData

Find out more about the report at this Digital Science State of Open Data site.

The State of Open Data 2023

Key findings:

1. Support is not making its way to those who need it 

Almost three-quarters of survey respondents reported they had never received support with planning, managing or sharing their research data, despite the importance of support in the context of the global increase in open data policies and mandates. For those who did receive support for data sharing, it most often came from informal sources like internal colleagues or supervisors (61%). Other sources of support researchers could rely on were institutional libraries (31%), research office / in-house institutional expertise (26%), publishers (21%) and funders (17%).

2. One size does not fit all

Variations in responses from different geographic regions and academic disciplines underscore the need for a more nuanced global approach to research data management support. Notably, there was a general consensus in favor of a national mandate for open research data (64%), with respondents from India and Germany displaying higher levels of support (both 71%) compared to other countries.

3. Challenging stereotypes

While it is often thought that later career academics are opposed to progress, the results of the 2023 survey indicate that career stage is not a significant factor in open data awareness or support levels. This highlights the need for more inclusive outreach when organizing discussions, forums and panels in the open research space.

4. Credit is an ongoing issue

For eight consecutive years, The State of Open Data survey has revealed a recurring concern among researchers: the perception that they don’t receive sufficient recognition for openly sharing their data. In fact, 60% of respondents believe that they receive too little credit for sharing their data.

5. AI awareness hasn’t translated to action

For the first time this year, survey respondents were asked to indicate if they were using ChatGPT or similar generative AI tools for data collection, processing and metadata creation. The most common response to all three questions was: ‘I’m aware of these tools but haven’t considered it.’ In light of the fast-moving nature of AI tools and their applications, The State of Open Data will continue to measure developments in this area in coming surveys

About Digital Science

Digital Science is an AI-focused technology company providing innovative solutions to complex challenges faced by researchers, universities, funders, industry and publishers. We work in partnership to advance global research for the benefit of society. Through our brands – Altmetric, Dimensions, Figshare, ReadCube, Symplectic, IFI CLAIMS Patent Services, Overleaf, Writefull, OntoChem, Scismic and metaphacts – we believe when we solve problems together, we drive progress for all. Visit www.digital-science.com and follow @digitalsci on X or on LinkedIn.

About Figshare

Figshare is a Software-as-a-Service repository solution for institutions. Its infrastructure and global community provide institutions with a platform for their researchers to share and preserve their research outputs – including large datasets – in a findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR) way. Complete with altmetrics and citation data, researchers get credit for all their outputs. Figshare is part of Digital Science. Visit www.figshare.com and follow @figshare on X.

About Springer Nature

For over 180 years Springer Nature has been advancing discovery by providing the best possible service  to the whole research community. We help researchers uncover new ideas, make sure all the research we publish is significant, robust and stands up to objective scrutiny, that it reaches all relevant audiences in the best possible format, and can be discovered,accessed, used, re-used and shared. We support librarians and institutions with innovations in technology and data; and provide quality publishing support to societies.

As a research publisher, Springer Nature is home to trusted brands including Springer, Nature Portfolio, BMC, Palgrave Macmillan and Scientific American. For more information, please visit springernature.com and @SpringerNature

Media contacts

David Ellis, Press, PR & Social Manager, Digital Science: Mobile +61 447 783 023, d.ellis@digital-science.com

Katie Baker, Head of Communications, Springer Nature: katie.baker@springernature.com

The post The State of Open Data Report 2023: Support for researchers still lacking appeared first on Digital Science.

There’s a good quantity of research that’s been made open that otherwise would not have been made open without Figshare. I’m very proud of that fact.”

Mark Hahnel

Figshare founder and CEO

On April 13th 2023, Mark tweeted that Figshare had reached seven million outputs, a significant milestone in anyone’s book! He and I jumped on a quick call to discuss what that achievement means for Figshare, and before we knew it our chat had meandered onto what it was like in the very early days of Figshare and Overleaf, and how milestones and celebrations change as the numbers keep going up and to the right! 🙂

We hope you enjoy where the conversation takes us. If you’d also like a more serious analysis to complement our light-hearted discussion, check out Figshare’s report on The State of Open Data 2022.

Mark Hahnel is Figshare’s founder and CEO, and I (John Hammersley) am one of the co-founders of Overleaf. Figshare and Overleaf are both part of Digital Science.

Quick links

• Breakfast
• Seven million outputs
• Incremental gains
• What’s most popular?
• It’s all about neuroscience
• Programmatic downloads via the API
• Inevitability, excitement, and new unknowns

Breakfast

John Hammersley (JH): Well, that looks like a good breakfast.

Mark Hahnel (MH): Mm-hmm. Start with the important things. This video isn’t going live somewhere is it?

JH:  No, no. It’s just for my notes. Just to save me typing. Yeah…

JH: Swiftly moving on, onto the amazing stat…seven million outputs on Figshare!

Seven million outputs

MH: Yeah, so I put out the seven million objects tweet as I’m looking at the platform, checking there’s no suspect content and things like that, and it’s a number that rolled over when I looked at it. There’s a good quantity of research that’s been made open that otherwise would not have been made open without Figshare. I’m very proud of that fact. 

MH: One clarification I should definitely add upfront though is that this isn’t all content that people have uploaded themselves; we have publishers using Figshare to e.g. make supplementary materials more accessible, and institutions who e.g. upload content from their departments. 

JH: We have a similar number on Overleaf — 12 million users — not all still use the platform, but it’s still amazing that there are millions of people who’ve used Overleaf over the years. So even though some of those seven million objects on Figshare have come from publishers and institutions, you started Figshare 11 years ago with your own data — to make your data more available than it just sitting on your hard-drive — and 11 years later there’s now seven million items on this platform you’ve built. That must be an amazing feeling now, but how was it at the start?

We had loads of signups…and then it took three days for somebody to upload something!”

MH: Yeah, it is amazing, and thinking back to year one — I remember, we had people using it, then we rebuilt it from scratch, and the relaunch was featured on TechCrunch. We had loads of signups, and then it took three days for somebody to upload something…so 48 hours in I was sat there…zero people have uploaded anything! What’s going on?! And now we get hundreds or thousands everyday. So that’s a good metric to follow.

MH: We knew people would [upload things], because people had in the past (before the relaunch), but we’d never really checked how often they were doing it. And also, when you completely overhaul the interface….is there a problem, have we broken uploads somehow, or made it completely unintuitive? So it was a relief when those first uploads on the new platform came in.

Incremental gains

JH: I remember when we were on HackerNews very early on — you get this influx of people kicking the tyres. But we always wondered if this was going to translate into anything meaningful. For us (Overleaf) we saw that even though the (usage) line goes back down again after the big spike, it doesn’t go back down to where it was, it’s generally a bit higher up.

Update: I dug out this old graph we produced in April 2014 where we marked the times we were featured on HN and Slashdot. Although activity clearly drops after the spike, we retained some of those users and it helped give us an overall boost in how quickly we doubled, tripled, quadrupled in size:

MH: Incremental bumps! 

JH: Indeed…which turn into incremental gains! And now, hundreds of thousands of users on Overleaf and hundreds of thousands of outputs shared every day (on average) on Figshare… it’s mind-blowing.

What’s most popular?

JH: Do you happen to know offhand what the most…I would say popular, but maybe it’s simpler to say viewed, or downloaded, thing is?

MH: Yeah, there are few ways to measure it right (popularity). When it comes to most cited outputs <begin product pitch> we’re the only repository that allows you to track citations for all of your research outputs <end product pitch>. Of the most cited outputs, four out of the top ten are software. Even though we only have 10,000 software outputs (out of seven million in total) across all of Figshare.

JH: Wow, that’s cool, do you know what the software is?

MH: I can definitely find that out (see below)! I should caveat that last stat is of end user uploaded content – so someone has needed to find a place for it, and has posted it to Figshare.

Update: Mark shared the link to the graph-tool python library after the call, and also this post from a few years ago which examines the top 100 cited outputs on Figshare. It looks at commonalities across those software objects that were regularly cited, such as the presence of README files and a lot of metadata.

It’s all about neuroscience

MH: The most popular subject is neuroscience…which is interesting because there’s all these other repositories for neuroscience. So there’s loads of places to put neuroscience data, there’s not loads of places where I can put *insert random subject x* data. So surely those need a place to be … and I think it’s more the culture; neuroscientists are used to sharing all their data, and so when they have files they don’t have a home for, they still share them.

JH (smiling): We always knew when we had a neuroscientist on Overleaf, because our dictionary wasn’t very good, and if you wrote “neuroscience”, it thought it was a misspelling, and the suggestion it gave was “pseudoscience”, as the correction, and so we used to get people tweeting “are you trying to tell me something Overleaf?” or “what has Overleaf got against neuroscience?” 🙂

MH: That’s brilliant. It’s hard to please all the people all the time!

Programmatic downloads via the API

MH: The most downloaded data, which is kind of cool and zeitgeisty right now, is large data sets for AI / machine learning models…for example, there’s a database of faces which gets downloaded a lot, presumably for facial recognition. 

MH: And the reason they’re the most downloaded is because they’re programmatically downloaded…it’s not someone finding it and pushing download, it’s someone using the API and using it in a query of some compute they’re doing somewhere.

JH: Do you find the API gets much use? Would you say most downloads are through the API?

MH: It definitely gets some use, but as for the most downloads…I don’t know that, but I’d suggest probably no….if it is it’ll be because these random one-off datasets are getting a million downloads versus everyone else getting say 10…so there might be a really big skew.

MH: I think people tend to build tools that push content into Figshare, rather than build tools to interact with it. This is actually a bit of a flaw in the product at the moment — if you build things to interact with it, because there’s such heterogeneity in the file types, you can’t programmatically query a file — you can’t say “look at that file, and tell me what’s in column C Row 3 – you have to download it and parse it on your end. So less people do that because there’s that extra step.

JH: I see, and you’re right that that probably skews the download stats a bit as well, because if you need to use stuff (i.e. if you want to parse it programmatically), you have to download it all first. I look forward to the upgraded API allowing querying of files without downloading 🙂

MH: No promises!

Inevitability, excitement, and new unknowns

JH: So, back to seven million objects…when you saw that number tick over, what did it feel like?  

MH: Good question! There was definitely a lot of pride, but it wasn’t like the early days when we hit milestones…probably because I was expecting it (even though I wasn’t explicitly tracking it).

JH: Makes sense — I remember back when John and I did the Overleaf founder story video (back in 2015), we had one or two hundred thousand users…which felt massive at the time (and it was!), but there was something more than that. The growth at that stage still felt very…unexpected.

MH: Whereas now it’s predictable, right? I see Overleaf has just hit 12 million users, and I bet you could predict to within a few weeks when you’ll hit 13 million. So whilst it’s still something to celebrate, it’s not quite the same.

JH: Yeah, you’re right, and I expect it’s the same for Figshare? Like in the early days, in that first 48 hours, you had a real concern as to whether anyone was going to upload anything. And then you get to 10 uploads, a hundred, a thousand and you still don’t know if it’s going to last. You didn’t know if you’re going to get to 10,000 uploads, you didn’t know if you’re going to get to a hundred thousand…

MH: Yeah, exactly — if you asked me back then, if you asked me in those first 48 hours “would we ever get to 10 million outputs across all Figshare infrastructure?” I’d say “Well, I have no idea, that’s too far ahead. Can you imagine 10 million outputs?” And now I’m like, yeah, very confident (touchwood!) it’s going to happen, even though it’s still three million more.

…you know we might look back on seven million, and think ‘wow, those were the slow days!’”

JH: So I have to ask — what is exciting now? 🙂 

MH: The excitement is still in the volume, just in a different way. I think the exciting thing for me is that this is still the start. If you said to me in 10 years, is there going to be less data publishing or more data publishing than there is today, there’s definitely going to be more. So, the volume, you know, we might look back on seven million, and think “wow, those were the slow days!”  

MH: Let’s assume there’s something like three million papers a year that get published. So if you assume three million papers, then how many data sets are associated with each paper? Let’s average four. You’re looking at 12 million data sets and that’s just data sets. What about the code? What about the posters? What about the …? So I think there will be a saturation point, but we’re nowhere near the saturation point, and that is exciting. The inevitability is exciting because of the growth that’s still ahead.

JH: And so just to flip that around a bit for the last question: the worry in the early days was that no-one uses this, no-one uploads any content, and everything just fizzles out. Now there isn’t that particular worry — as you say, the content volume is more predictable. So what’s the worry that’s replaced it? What keeps you up at night these days?

MH: The worries have definitely changed, and it wasn’t just content worries — we also worried whether storage capacities keep up, will the cost of storage keep coming down? But that did continue, as did the uploads, and so there’s going to be more data, the world has more data, and we can scale to handle it. That’s no problem. 

MH: So the concern for me is the trust part, the research integrity part. We’ve got all of this information. How do we curate it to make it useful and be meaningful? There’s lots of ideas on how to solve that problem, and lots of smart people working on it (step forward Leslie!), but that’s definitely something that’s often on my mind.

If you’ve enjoyed reading this article and would like to chat to us about your experience as a start-up founder, or other interesting topic, please let us know — we’re always happy to hear your ideas and suggestions! Or just ping me on Twitter / LinkedIn 🙂

The post Seven million open research objects and counting – a conversation with Figshare founder Mark Hahnel appeared first on Digital Science.

Figshare offers a highly configurable repository solution to provide access to datasets, publications, and all of the products of research with a dedicated repository portal. Figshare’s out of the box software is designed to meet requirements for security, accessibility, and global repository standards such as preservation, persistence, metadata, and discoverability.

How researchers are using open data

The State of Open Data is the longest-running longitudinal study that examines attitudes and experiences of researchers working with open data – sharing it, reusing it, and redistributing it. The reports provide an interesting lens through which to view how far open research has come, and to look at opportunities for improvement in data sharing. Every year Digital Science, in association with Figshare and Springer Nature, conducts the largest survey of its kind to discover global attitudes towards open data.

4/5 respondents are in favour of research data being made openly available as common practice

Read the 2024 report

State of Open Data 2024

State of Open Data 2023

State of Open Data 2022

State of Open Data 2021

State of Open Data 2020

State of Open Data 2019

State of Open Data 2018

State of Open Data 2017

State of Open Data 2016

The post The future of Open Data appeared first on Digital Science.

Growing trend in researchers being in favour of data being made openly available

The State of Open Data is a global survey providing insights into researchers’ attitudes towards and experiences of open data.

In our seventh survey, we asked about motivations and perceived discoverability and credibility of data that is shared openly. With more than 5,400 respondents, the 2022 survey is the largest since the COVID-19 pandemic began.

This year’s report also includes guest articles from open data experts at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), the Computer Network Information Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), publishers and universities.

Key findings from this year’s survey

• There is a growing trend in researchers being in favour of data being made openly available as common practice (4 out of every five researchers were in agreement with this), supported somewhat by now over 70% of respondents being required to follow a policy on data sharing.
• However, researchers still cite a key need in helping them to share their data as being more training or information on policies for access, sharing and reuse (55%) as well as long-term storage and data management strategies (52%).
• Credit and recognition were once again a key theme for researchers in sharing their data. Of those who had previously shared data, 66% had received some form of recognition for their efforts – most commonly via full citation in another article (41%) followed by co-authorship on a paper that had used the data.
• Researchers are more inclined to share their research data where it can have an impact on citations (67%) and the visibility of their research (61%), rather than being motivated by public benefit or journal/publisher mandate (both 56%).

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Thursday 13 October 2022

New findings provide update on researchers’ attitudes towards open data

Researchers worldwide will need further assistance to help comply with an increasing number of open data mandates, according to the authors of a new report.

The State of Open Data Report 2022 – the latest in an annual collaborative series from Digital Science, Figshare and Springer Nature – is released today.

Based on a global survey, the report is now in its seventh year and provides insights into researchers’ attitudes towards and experiences of open data. With more than 5,400 respondents, the 2022 survey is the largest since the COVID-19 pandemic began.

This year’s report also includes guest articles from open data experts at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), the Computer Network Information Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CNIC, CAS), publishers and universities. The report also contains a contribution from the National Autonomous University of Mexico – the first from a Latin-American country.

Founder and CEO of Figshare Mark Hahnel says: “This year’s State of Open Data Report comes at a unique point in time when we’re seeing a growing number of open data mandates from funding organizations and policymakers, most notably the NIH and OSTP in the United States, but also recently from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) in Australia, and in Europe and the UK.

“What is clear from the findings of our report is that while most researchers embrace the concepts of open data and open science, they also have some reasonable misgivings about how open data policies and practices impact on them. In an environment where open data mandates are increasing, funding organizations would benefit from working even more closely with researchers and providing them with additional support to help smooth the transition to a fully open data future.

“We all have a role to play in driving a better future for open data and accessible research, and one way we can do that through this report is by listening to the voices of researchers, funders, institutions, and publishers,” he says.

Primary findings from this year’s report indicated that:

• There is a growing trend in researchers being in favour of data being made openly available as common practice (4 out of every five researchers were in agreement with this), supported somewhat by now over 70% of respondents being required to follow a policy on data sharing.
• However, researchers still cite a key need in helping them to share their data as being more training or information on policies for access, sharing and reuse (55%) as well as long-term storage and data management strategies (52%).
• Credit and recognition were once again a key theme for researchers in sharing their data. Of those who had previously shared data, 66% had received some form of recognition for their efforts – most commonly via full citation in another article (41%) followed by co-authorship on a paper that had used the data.
• Researchers are more inclined to share their research data where it can have an impact on citations (67%) and the visibility of their research (61%), rather than being motivated by public benefit or journal/publisher mandate (both 56%).

Graham Smith, Open Data Program Manager, Springer Nature, says: “For the past seven years these surveys have helped paint a picture of researcher perspectives on open data. The report shows us not only the progress made but the steps that still need to be taken on the journey towards an open data future in support of the research community. Whether it’s the broad support of researchers for making research data openly available as common practice or the changing attitudes to open data mandates, we must learn from and deliver concrete steps forward to address what the community is telling us.

“Springer Nature is firmly committed to this and we continue to work closely with our partners, such as Figshare and Digital Science, to create better understanding around data sharing.”

Daniel Hook, CEO of Digital Science, says: “Digital Science is committed to making open, collaborative and inclusive research possible, as we believe this environment will lead to the greatest benefit for society. Now in its seventh year, while the articles in The State of Open Data Report represent a unique set of snapshots marking the evolution of attitudes about Open Data in our community, the data behind the survey constitutes a valuable resource to track researcher sentiment regarding open data and their experiences of data sharing. I believe that these data represent an amazing opportunity to understand the challenges and needs of our community so that we can collectively build better infrastructure to support research.”

The full report can be accessed on Figshare: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.21276984

Join in the conversation at #StateOfOpenData

Key findings via theme of the report

Support for open data

• Four out of every five respondents are in favour of research data being made openly available as common practice.
• 74% of respondents reported sharing their data during publication.
• Approximately one fifth of respondents reported having no concerns about sharing data openly – this proportion has been steadily growing since 2018.
• 88% of researchers surveyed are supportive of making research articles open access (OA) as a common scholarly practice.

Motivations and benefits

• When it comes to researchers sharing their data, citations of research papers (67%) and increased impact and visibility of papers (61%) outweigh public benefit or journal/publisher mandate (both 56%) as motivation.
• Of those who had previously shared data, 66% had received some form of recognition for their efforts – most commonly via full citation in another article (41%) followed by co-authorship on a paper that had used the data.
• A third of respondents indicated they had been involved in a research collaboration as a result of data they had previously shared.

Open data mandates

• 70% of respondents were required to follow a policy on data sharing for their most recent piece of research.
• More than two-thirds of respondents are supportive “to some extent” of a national mandate for making research data openly available. This number has been declining since 2019.
• Just over half (52%) of respondents in the 2022 survey felt that sharing data should be a part of the requirement for awarding research grants. Again, this number has been declining since 2019.

Drawbacks

• Only 19% of respondents believe that researchers get sufficient credit for sharing their data, while 75% say they receive too little credit.
• Just under a quarter of respondents indicated that they had previously received support with planning, managing or sharing their research data

• The greatest concern among respondents is misuse of their data (35%).
• The key needs of researchers which were felt more training or information would improve were better understanding and definitions for policies for access, sharing and reuse (55%) as well as long-term storage and data management strategies (52%) – things that impact both ends of the research cycle.

Key demographics of respondents

• Researchers from China now comprise 11% of all respondents, equal with that of the United States. China and the US are the two countries with the biggest response to the survey, followed by India, Japan, Germany, Italy, UK, Canada, Brazil, France and Spain.
• 31% of respondents were early career researchers (ECRs), while a further 31% classed themselves as senior researchers.
• Most respondents (42%) were from medicine & life sciences; 38% from mathematics, physics and applied sciences; and 17% from humanities and social sciences (an increase of 3%).
• Respondents were broadly categorised as: Open science advocates (32%), Open publishing advocates (26%), Cautiously pro open science (25%), Open science agnostics (11%), and Non-believers of open science (6%).

About Figshare
Figshare is a leading provider of out-of-the-box, cloud repository software for research data, papers, theses, teaching materials, conference outputs, and more. Research outputs become more discoverable and impactful with search engine indexing and usage metrics including citations and altmetrics. Figshare provides a proficient platform for all types of research data to be shared and showcased in a FAIR way whilst enabling researchers to receive credit. Visit knowledge.figshare.com and follow @figshare on Twitter.

About Springer Nature
For over 180 years Springer Nature has been advancing discovery by providing the best possible service to the whole research community. We help researchers uncover new ideas, make sure all the research we publish is significant, robust and stands up to objective scrutiny, that it reaches all relevant audiences in the best possible format, and can be discovered, accessed, used, re-used and shared. We support librarians and institutions with innovations in technology and data; and provide quality publishing support to societies. As a research publisher, Springer Nature is home to trusted brands including Springer, Nature Portfolio, BMC, Palgrave Macmillan and Scientific American. For more information, please visit springernature.com and @SpringerNature

About Digital Science
Digital Science is a technology company working to make research more efficient. We invest in, nurture and support innovative businesses and technologies that make all parts of the research process more open and effective. Our portfolio includes admired brands Altmetric, Dimensions, Figshare, ReadCube, Symplectic, IFI CLAIMS, Overleaf, Ripeta and Writefull. We believe that together, we can help researchers make a difference. Visit www.digital-science.com and follow @digitalsci on Twitter.

Media contacts

David Ellis, Press, PR & Social Manager, Digital Science, Mobile +61 447 783 023: d.ellis@digital-science.com

Sam Sule, Communications Officer, Springer Nature: +44 203 192 2149, sam.sule@springernature.com

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London, 30 November, 2pm GMT – Figshare, Digital Science, and Springer Nature’s annual State of Open Data report finds increasing concern among researchers about misuse of data as well as a lack of credit and acknowledgement for those who do openly share their data. 

Among the key findings, 55% feel they need support in regard to copyright and licenses when making research data openly available, and 73% strongly or somewhat support the idea of a national mandate for making research data openly available. At the same time, 65% of respondents have never received credit or acknowledgement for sharing data. 

The State of Open Data report is in its sixth year, and more than 4,200 researchers responded from around the world, providing detailed and prolonged insight into motivations, challenges, perceptions, and behaviors toward open data. It builds on a strong body of evidence that confirms one of the main barriers to data sharing is lack of credit and acknowledgement.

Primary motivations for data sharing are tied to traditional measurements of impact and credit, with 19% of respondents motivated by citation of their research papers, 14% by co-authorship on papers, 11% by increased impact and visibility of research, and 11% on public benefit. 

Despite concerns over misuse of data and licensing, 66% of respondents had heard of the FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable) data principles, which were established five years ago, with 28% responding that they are familiar with them, the highest number since this question was first asked in 2018. More than half of respondents (54%) thought their data was very much or somewhat compliant with the FAIR data principles, also the highest number since this question was first asked in 2018. These findings indicate that concern over sharing data could lessen in the long run if data are as accessible and reusable as possible.

Mark Hahnel, CEO and Founder of Figshare, says: “Over the last six years we have had over 21,000 responses from researchers to our annual survey of open data. This year the message we heard very clearly from respondents concerned a lack of acknowledgement for data sharing. Researchers want to share, but the current system does not incentivise it and they additionally need support to understand licensing and copyright. Providing the training and support will help but only by addressing the way academics are rewarded can we move to a world where data is more openly shared.”

Eugenie Regan, Vice President, Research Solutions, Springer Nature said: “These surveys have provided an essential benchmark in addressing where researchers feel the benefits in data sharing and where the gaps and concerns still remain. Whilst year-on-year progress can be seen in some areas, researcher concerns still remain around credit, data misuse and support around copyright and licensing. To move to a truly open research environment, we as a community need to get better at taking concrete steps to drive forward appropriate measures to better support our research community. Springer Nature is firmly committed to this and we continue to work closely with our partners, such as Figshare and Digital Science, to better develop solutions and understanding around data sharing together.”

Notes to editors:

Digital Science is a technology company working to make research more efficient. We invest in, nurture and support innovative businesses and technologies that make all parts of the research process more open and effective. Our portfolio includes admired brands such as Altmetric, Dimensions, Figshare, ReadCube Papers, Symplectic, IFI CLAIMS, Overleaf, Ripeta, Scismic and Writefull. Digital Science’s Consultancy group works with organisations around the world to create new insights based on data to support decision makers. We believe that together, we can help researchers make a difference. Visit www.digital-science.com and follow @digitalsci on Twitter.

For over 175 years Springer Nature has been advancing discovery by providing the best possible service to the whole research community. We help researchers uncover new ideas, make sure all the research we publish is significant, robust and stands up to objective scrutiny, that it reaches all relevant audiences in the best possible format, and can be discovered, accessed, used, re-used and shared. We support librarians and institutions with innovations in technology and data; and provide quality publishing support to societies. 

As a research publisher, Springer Nature is home to trusted brands including Springer, Nature Portfolio, BMC, Palgrave Macmillan and Scientific American. For more information, please visit springernature.com and @SpringerNature.

Media contact

David Ellis, Press, PR & Social Manager, Digital Science: Mobile +61 447 783 023, d.ellis@digital-science.com

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