Data Sharing in Academia

Datensatzinformation

DOI: 10.5684/dsa-03

The survey contains mainly closed multiple-choice questions as rating scales. It covers questions on sociodemographics, the individual working context of the researcher, publication preferences, common impediments and incentives for sharing data and, expectations for using secondary data. The survey instrument is based on a previous study, consisting of a systematic review of data sharing studies and a secondary data user survey.

We conducted the online survey from October to November 2014. It was administered online via LimeSurvey. We contacted the faculty heads of 60 German universities. We selected them based on the number of students and chose the 20 largest, the 20 smallest and 20 medium-sized ones. Additionally we contacted the scientific directors of the four biggest German research organizations—the Max Planck Society, the Leibniz Association, the Helmholtz Association, and the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft—and asked these organizations to forward the survey to researchers within their institute. We also uploaded a link to the survey on our project website and on the website of the German Data Forum. Additionally, we sent the survey to our institutional mailing lists (e.g., Leibniz institutes, and the Global Network of Interdisciplinary Internet & Society Research Centers). In the emails to the faculty leaders and in the introductory text of the survey, we specifically addressed researchers that work with data. That being said, our sample is a convenience sample and not representative of the entire population of academic researchers in Germany or worldwide.

Data privacy statement and data access

Data privacy statement (from the questionnaire): Your participation in this survey is voluntary and your responses will be saved in anonymous form. No record is kept of any names or addresses. The data will be provided initially to the researchers involved for their own analysis and after approximately one year will be made available for secondary use by the academic research community under strict adherence to the legal data protection provisions applying to the Research Data Center of the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).