Data functionality as a function of data source
Creators: name: Towse, John
name: Liziniewicz, Bogna
Publisher: name: Open Science Framework
Year: 2022
Subjects: subject: Social and Behavioral Sciences
subject: Psychology
subject: FOS: Psychology

description: The primary aim of this research is to compare the quality of the data that is made publicly available associated with research outputs, with the quality of the data that comes by direct request. An additional factor in this research project is the age of the research output. For both sorts of data source (publicly shared vs requested), we will examine the quality, and the availability, as a function of publication time. Doing so will address claims in the literature for changes in data access over time (see Vines et al., https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2013.11.014). For this project, two publication sources will be considered: (1) British Journal of Psychology (2) Psychological Science In each case, articles will be sampled randomly from the Journal across the publication window 2016-2020, so as to form 2 time windows (2016 - 2017 and 2018 - 2020). Where articles are identified that indicate publicly shared data, these will be examined for functionality following Towse et al. (in press), https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-020-01486-1 Where articles do not indicate publicly shared data, a sample of authors will be contact by email to request the underlying data. (i) All corresponding authors will be contacted at the same time. (ii) A single follow up / reminder will be sent 2 weeks after the initial message to re-request the data. We will record (a) the proportion of authors who reply to the initial request for data and (b) the proportion of authors who reply the the follow-up request. In each case, we will note whether the underlying dataset is provided (rather than, for example, an explanation for why data are not being supplied). In cases where requested data has been provided by authors, it will be examined in the same way as publicly shared data for functionality (see above). We will provide a copy of the template record to be sent to corresponding authors on the OSF project. An additional objective of the project is to find out why researchers decide to share (or not share) their data. Once the first phase of the study is completed as outlined above, the authors of all the papers used in the research will be invited to complete a survey on the reasons why they believe the research data should (or not) be shared. The survey will be sent by email. (i) All corresponding authors will be contacted at the same time - everyone will receive a personal link to the survey. (ii) A single follow up / reminder will be sent 2 weeks after the initial message to invite the authors who still have not completed the survey. The aim of this part of the study is to study the reasons underlying researcher decisions on data sharing. For previous research, see Roche et al. (2014), doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001779 Respondents will complete a set of questions from a Qualtrics survey, based on a questionnaire by Houtkoop et al. (2018), https://doi.org/10.1177%2F2515245917751886 The survey will be anonymous, meaning the answers will not be identifiable.