Academic data citation and reuse

One of the pillars of Open Science is the publication of research data. Firstly, open research data supports the reproducibility and scrutiny of research. Secondly, re-use of the data by others can make research more efficient. Through the State of Open Data^[1] report, we can see the transition in attitudes of academics, as well as regional policies towards the sharing of research data.

We are trying to measure the adoption of these ideas in the scientific community by counting datasets and their citations in publications using Dimensions data on Google BigQuery (GBQ).

We show that the number of cited datasets and citing publications has increased massively however there remains a very small subset of the registered datasets. We analyse the numbers by repository and subject and raise several questions around citation policy as well as future avenues of research. 

We also delve further into the state of data sharing in New Zealand and compare the attitude towards data sharing, the methods for sharing, rates of citation and reuse compared to other regions across the globe.

[1] Hahnel, Mark; Smith, Graham; Schoenenberger, Henning; Scaplehorn, Niki; Day, Laura (2023). The State of Open Data 2023. Digital Science. Report. https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.24428194.v1

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Anthony Dona is a Senior Director at Digital Science, using his role to drive his passion for enabling novel research outcomes. He works specifically with government and funding organisations across the Asia-Pacific region to aid data-driven decisions related to research funding and assessment. Anthony previously gained a PhD from the University of Sydney in Biochemistry and has worked as a postdoctoral researcher at both the University of Sydney and Imperial College London.

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