Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2019 Dec 18;14(12):e0225883.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0225883. eCollection 2019.

A study of the impact of data sharing on article citations using journal policies as a natural experiment

Garret Christensen  1 , Allan Dafoe  2 , Edward Miguel  3 , Don A Moore  3 , Andrew K Rose  3
Affiliations

A study of the impact of data sharing on article citations using journal policies as a natural experiment

Garret Christensen et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

This study estimates the effect of data sharing on the citations of academic articles, using journal policies as a natural experiment. We begin by examining 17 high-impact journals that have adopted the requirement that data from published articles be publicly posted. We match these 17 journals to 13 journals without policy changes and find that empirical articles published just before their change in editorial policy have citation rates with no statistically significant difference from those published shortly after the shift. We then ask whether this null result stems from poor compliance with data sharing policies, and use the data sharing policy changes as instrumental variables to examine more closely two leading journals in economics and political science with relatively strong enforcement of new data policies. We find that articles that make their data available receive 97 additional citations (estimate standard error of 34). We conclude that: a) authors who share data may be rewarded eventually with additional scholarly citations, and b) data-posting policies alone do not increase the impact of articles published in a journal unless those policies are enforced.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Flow diagram of sample selection.
Separately our two teams selected journals, then used all empirical articles in those journals as treated observations.
Fig 2
Fig 2. Citations per article appear in the top row, for articles published before treated journals’ adoption of a data-posting policy.
The bottom row shows the difference in citations per article following the policy change. Error bars show 95% confidence intervals.
Fig 3
Fig 3. Percentage of articles with posted data appear in the top row.
The middle row shows the cumulative citation advantage for articles with posted data as of November 2017, and the bottom row shows citations in year five post-publication. AER = American Economic Review, QJE = Quarterly Journal of Economics, AJPS = American Journal of Political Science, and APSR = American Political Science Review.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Miguel E, Camerer C, Casey K, Cohen J, Esterling KM, Gerber A, et al. Promoting transparency in social science research. Science. 2014;343(6166):30–1. 10.1126/science.1245317 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Tenopir C, Allard S, Douglass K, Aydinoglu AU, Wu L, Read E, et al. Data sharing by scientists: practices and perceptions. PloS One. 2011;6(6):e21101 10.1371/journal.pone.0021101 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Vines TH, Albert AYK, Andrew RL, Débarre F, Bock DG, Franklin MT, et al. The availability of research data declines rapidly with article age. Curr Biol. 2014;24(1):94–7. 10.1016/j.cub.2013.11.014 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Christensen G, Miguel E. Transparency, reproducibility, and the credibility of economics research. J Econ Lit. 2018;56(3):920–80.
    1. Piwowar HA, Day RS, Fridsma DB. Sharing detailed research data is associated with increased citation rate. PloS One. 2007;2(3):e308 10.1371/journal.pone.0000308 - DOI - PMC - PubMed

Publication types