50¶È»Ò

22 October 2018

We were delighted to partner again with Digital Science on their third annual report examining attitudes and experiences of researchers working with open data. The 2018 survey results continue to show encouraging progress, that open data is becoming more embedded in the research community.

Key results:

• 64% of respondents revealed they made their data openly available in 2018, a 7% rise on 2016.
• Data citations are motivating more respondents to make data openly available, increasing 7% from 2017 to 46%.
• 60% of respondents had never heard of FAIR principles (Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability and Reusability), which provide a guideline for data producers and publishers to enhance the reusability of academic data.
• The percentage of respondents in support of national mandates for open data is higher at 63% than in 2017 (55%).
• Respondents who revealed that they had reused open data in their research continues to shrink. In 2018, 48% said they had done this, whereas in 2017, 50% had done so, with 57% in 2016.
• Most researchers felt that that they did not get sufficient credit for sharing data (58%), compared to 9% who felt they do.
• Respondents having lost research data has decreased from 2017 (36% versus 30% in 2018).

To find out more on what can be done to accelerate data sharing, you can by 50¶È»Ò's Data & New Product Development Director (Open Research).