Data sharing
Many funding agencies, institutions, and publication venues have policies regarding data sharing because transparency and openness are considered by many to be part of the scientific method.
[1] A number of funding agencies and science journals require authors of peer-reviewed papers to share any supplemental information (raw data, statistical methods or source code) necessary to understand, develop or reproduce published research.
In addition, in certain situations governments[2] and institutions prohibit or severely limit data sharing to protect proprietary interests, national security, and subject/patient/victim confidentiality.
To take full advantage of modern rapid communication may require consensual agreement on the criteria underlying mutual recognition of respective contributions.
On August 9, 2007, President Bush signed the America COMPETES Act (or the "America Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in Technology, Education, and Science Act") requiring civilian federal agencies to provide guidelines, policies and procedures, to facilitate and optimize the open exchange of data and research between agencies, the public and policymakers.
We believe that data sharing is essential for expedited translation of research results into knowledge, products, and procedures to improve human health.
We have therefore revised our definition of "the timely release and sharing" to be no later than the acceptance for publication of the main findings from the final data set.
Adjustments and, where essential, exceptions may be allowed to safeguard the rights of individuals and subjects, the validity of results, or the integrity of collections or to accommodate legitimate interests of investigators.
The United States Department of Health and Human Services established an office to oversee investigations of allegations of misconduct, including data withholding.
[16] Dr. Richard J. Hodes, director of the National Institute on Aging has stated, "the old model in which researchers jealously guarded their data is no longer applicable".
[24][25] Withholding of data has become so commonplace in genetics that researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital published a journal article on the subject.
"[26] In a 2006 study, it was observed that, of 141 authors of a publication from the American Psychological Association (APA) empirical articles, 103 (73%) did not respond with their data over a 6-month period.
[27] In a follow-up study published in 2015, it was found that 246 out of 394 contacted authors of papers in APA journals did not share their data upon request (62%).
The same study also emailed authors of articles on experiments with stone artifacts that were published during 2009 and 2015 to request data relating to the publications.
