EAGER: Implementing Effective Sharing of Research Data

该项目调查了爱荷华州立大学教师和研究人员之间共享和再利用电子研究数据的当前做法和态度。联邦政策鼓励并且在很多情况下确实要求研究人员提供可重复使用的研究数据集，这些数据集是由联邦资助的研究项目创建的。先前的一些研究发现，尽管学者们在原则上广泛肯定了研究数据共享的价值，但在实践中，他们往往无法以可重复使用的格式共享自己的数据。本项目探讨开放科学理想与实际实践之间差异的原因，为制定更有效和高效的数据共享政策提供证据基础，并促进大学基础设施的发展，以更好地支持研究数据共享。这项研究的结果将有助于数据共享政策的制定和实施，这些政策在促进数据重用方面更有效，同时降低研究者和大学遵守这些政策的成本。加强数据共享将反过来促进更快的科学进步。该项目与爱荷华州立大学（Iowa State University）的一项新的机构倡议相吻合，该倡议旨在为数据共享和再利用的理想建立更强大的机构支持，而调查中的一个核心问题是，哪种机构方法在支持增加的数据共享方面最有效。对教职员工和研究人员的初步调查将用于建立现有的正式和非正式的数据共享和数据再利用实践的基线测量，以及它们在学科、职业阶段和其他研究者特征方面的变化。18至24个月后进行的后续调查将评估新大学政策和支持数据共享的基础设施对数据共享的影响。此外，还将分析受资助项目的研究者执行数据管理计划的信息，并收集和分析实施数据管理计划的隐性和显性成本数据，以阐明这些成本对合规的影响程度。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project investigates current practices and attitudes relating to the sharing and re-use of electronic research data among faculty and research staff at Iowa State University. Federal policy encourages and indeed requires in many cases that researchers make available for re-use research datasets created as a result of federally funded research projects. A number of previous studies have found that although scholars widely affirm the value of research data sharing in principle they have often failed in practice to share their own data in formats that are accessible for re-use. This project investigates the reasons for the divergence between the ideals of open science and actual practice to provide an evidence base for the development of more effective and efficient policies for data sharing and to facilitate development of university infrastructure to better support research data sharing. The results of this research will contribute to the development and implementation of data sharing policies that are more effective in facilitating data re-use while reducing the cost to investigators and universities of compliance with these policies. Enhanced data sharing will, in turn, contribute to more rapid scientific progress.The project coincides with a new institutional initiative at Iowa State University to establish more robust institutional support for the ideals of data sharing and re-use, and a central question in the investigation is what institutional approaches are most effective in supporting increased data sharing. An initial survey of faculty and research staff will be used to establish a baseline measure of existing formal and informal practices for data sharing and data re-use and their variations by discipline, career stage, and other investigator characteristics. A follow up survey administered 18 to 24 months later will assess the impact on data sharing of new university policies and infrastructure to support data sharing. In addition, information on investigator follow through with data management plans for funded projects will be analyzed, and data on implicit and explicit costs of implementing data management plans will be collected and analyzed to illuminate the extent to which these costs affect compliance.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.