A research data sharing game
Author and article information
Abstract
While reusing research data has evident benefits for the scientific community as a whole, decisions to archive and share these data are primarily made by individual researchers. In this paper we analyse, within a game theoretical framework, how sharing and reuse of research data affect individuals who share or do not share their datasets. We construct a model in which there is a cost associated with sharing datasets whereas reusing such sets implies a benefit. In our calculations conflicting interests appeared for researchers. Individual researchers are always better off not sharing and omitting the sharing cost, at the same time both sharing and not sharing researchers are better off if (almost) all researchers share. Namely, the more researchers share, the more benefit can be gained by the reuse of those datasets. We simulated several policy measures to increase benefits for researchers sharing or reusing datasets. Results point out that, although policies should be able to increase the rate of sharing researchers, and increased discoverability and dataset quality could partly compensate for costs, a better measure would be to directly lower the costs for sharing, or even turn it into a (citation-) benefit. Making data available would in that case become the most profitable, and therefore stable, strategy. This means researchers would willingly make their datasets available, and arguably in the best possible way to enable reuse, making other policy measures less pressing.
Cite this as
2015. A research data sharing game. PeerJ PrePrints 3:e599v3 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.599v3Author comment
This is a much improved version to the previous! The model is now formalized and made explicit in terms of impact. Figures are completely revised. The main message is more clear.
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Competing Interests
The authors declare they have no competing interests.
Author Contributions
Tessa E Pronk conceived and designed the experiments, performed the experiments, analyzed the data, contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools, wrote the paper, prepared figures and/or tables, reviewed drafts of the paper.
Paulien H Wiersma contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools, reviewed drafts of the paper.
Anne van Weerden analyzed the data, reviewed drafts of the paper.
Feike Schieving conceived and designed the experiments, analyzed the data, contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools, reviewed drafts of the paper.
Data Deposition
The following information was supplied regarding the deposition of related data:
Dutch Dataverse Network:
Pronk, T.E., Wiersma, P.H., Weerden, van A., (2014) Replication data for: A RESEARCH DATA SHARING GAME, http://hdl.handle.net/10411/20328 [Version3]
Funding
The authors declare there was no funding for this work.
