Troubleshooting public data archiving: suggestions to increase participation

Abstract

An increasing number of publishers and funding agencies require public data archiving (PDA) in open-access databases. PDA has obvious group benefits for the scientific community, but many researchers are reluctant to share their data publicly because of real or perceived individual costs. Improving participation in PDA will require lowering costs and/or increasing benefits for primary data collectors. Small, simple changes can enhance existing measures to ensure that more scientific data are properly archived and made publicly available: (1) facilitate more flexible embargoes on archived data, (2) encourage communication between data generators and re-users, (3) disclose data re-use ethics, and (4) encourage increased recognition of publicly archived data.

Figure 1. Researchers can be reluctant to share their data publicly because of real and/or perceived individual costs.

Illustration credit: Ainsley Seago.

Figure 2. Embargoes chosen by Dryad data authors.

(A) Embargo selections of Dryad data authors for the 10,108 files in Dryad (http://datadryad.org/) deposited from inception to September 20, 2013. Data include only datasets related to articles published in journals for which the authors had the option of selecting an embargo. (B) Long-term embargoes (>1 year) by journal that granted them. Data were obtained from .