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. 2007 Mar 21;2(3):e308.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0000308.

Sharing detailed research data is associated with increased citation rate

Heather A Piwowar  1 , Roger S Day, Douglas B Fridsma
Affiliations

Sharing detailed research data is associated with increased citation rate

Heather A Piwowar et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Background: Sharing research data provides benefit to the general scientific community, but the benefit is less obvious for the investigator who makes his or her data available.

Principal findings: We examined the citation history of 85 cancer microarray clinical trial publications with respect to the availability of their data. The 48% of trials with publicly available microarray data received 85% of the aggregate citations. Publicly available data was significantly (p = 0.006) associated with a 69% increase in citations, independently of journal impact factor, date of publication, and author country of origin using linear regression.

Significance: This correlation between publicly available data and increased literature impact may further motivate investigators to share their detailed research data.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Distribution of 2004–2005 citation counts of 85 trials by data availability.
The 41 clinical trial publications which publicly shared their microarray data received more citations, in general, than the 44 publications which did not share their microarray data. In this plot of the distribution of citation counts received by each publication, the extent of the box encompasses the interquartile range of the citation counts, whiskers extend to 1.5 times the interquartile range, and lines within the boxes represent medians.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Distribution of 2004–2005 citation counts of the 70 lower-profile trials by data availability.
For trials which were published after 2000 and in journals with an impact factor less than 25, the 27 clinical trial publications which publicly shared their microarray data received more citations, in general, than the 43 publications which did not share their microarray data. In this plot of the distribution of citation counts received by each publication, the extent of the box encompasses the interquartile range of the citation counts, whiskers extend to 1.5 times the interquartile range, and lines within the boxes represent medians.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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