DOI: 10.5060/d8rp4v
title: Researcher perspectives on publication and peer review of data

description: Data ``publication'' seeks to appropriate the prestige of
 authorship in the peer-reviewed literature to reward researchers who
 create useful and well-documented datasets. The scholarly communication
 community has embraced data publication as an incentive to document and
 share data. But, numerous new and ongoing experiments in implementation
 have not yet resolved what a data publication should be, when data should
 be peer-reviewed, or how data peer review should work. While researchers
 have been surveyed extensively regarding data management and sharing,
 their perceptions and expectations of data publication are largely
 unknown. To bring this important yet neglected perspective into the
 conversation, we surveyed ~250 researchers across the sciences and social
 sciences-asking what expectations``data publication'' raises and
 what features would be useful to evaluate the trustworthiness, evaluate
 the impact, and enhance the prestige of a data publication. This data
 offers practical guidance for data publishers seeking to meet researcher
 expectations and enhance the value of published data.
description: All results were drawn from a survey approved by the University of
 California, Berkeley Committee for Protection of Human Subjects/Office for
 the Protection of Human Subjects (protocol ID 2013-11-5841). Respondents
 completed the survey anonymously. Researchers affiliated with the
 University of California (UC) could supply an email address for follow-up
 assistance with data publication, but neither the fact of affiliation nor
 any UC-specific information is included here.
 
 The survey contained 34 questions in three categories: demographics, data
 sharing interest and experience, and data publication perceptions.
 Demographic questions collected information on respondent's country,
 type of institution, research role, and discipline. Questions to assess
 respondent's existing knowledge of data sharing and publication
 focused on knowledge of several relevant US governmental policies and an
 invitation to name data journals. Data publication perceptions consisted
 of ``mark all that apply'' questions concerning definitions of
 data publication and peer review and Likert scale questions about the
 value of various possible features of a data publication. The number of
 required questions was kept to a minimum. Some questions were displayed
 dynamically based on previous answers. Consequently, n varies considerably
 from question to question.
 
 The survey was administered as a Google Form, officially open from January
 22 to February 28 of 2014; two late responses received in March were
 included in the analysis. Solicitations were distributed via social media
 (Twitter, Facebook, Google+), emails to listservs, and a blog post on Data
 Pub.
 
 Although the topic of the survey is benign and identification would be
 unlikely to negatively impact respondents, light anonymization was
 performed prior to release of the response data. UC affiliation and
 answers to UC-specific questions were redacted. Respondent locations were
 grouped into United States and ``other;'' this distinction was
 preserved only because some questions asked about US government policies.
 Sub-disciplines with fewer than three respondents were re-coded with the
 corresponding discipline. Listed data journal names were standardized
 manually, and free text answers to other questions were replaced with
 ``other.''