Sharing your data publicly (usually online) makes it available for other researchers to reuse.
Reasons to share your data:
- Increase your research impact and citation rate: If you share your research data online and others cite it, you can include these citations with your publication citations, demonstrating an increased impact of your scholarship. (PLoS ONE article: Sharing Detailed Research Data Is Associated with Increased Citation Rate)
- Promote collaboration: Other researchers finding your data online may be an avenue to start new or expand existing collaborations.
- Increase transparency and reproducibility of research
- Meet mandates of funding agencies or publishers: Data sharing guidelines vary widely between different funding agencies and publishers so check their guidelines very carefully. Currently, OU does not require you to share your research data.
