Not All Research Data Should Be Shared, Study Finds
A new study challenges the push for mandatory data sharing in science, identifying three distinct research cultures with different needs. The finding matters to policy makers and research institutions drafting data rules—one-size-fits-all mandates may hinder rather than help innovation in fields where data sharing makes less sense.
Originaltitel: When Data Sharing Is an Answer and When (Often) It Is Not: Acknowledging Data-driven, Non-data, and Data-decentered Cultures
<p>Contemporary research and innovation policies and advocates of data-intensive research paradigms continue to urge increased sharing of research data. Such paradigms are underpinned by a pro-data, normative data culture that has become dominant in the contemporary discourse. Earlier research on research data sharing has directed little attention to its alternatives as more than a deficit. The present study aims to provide insights into researchers' perspectives, rationales and practices of (non-)sharing of research data in relation to their research practices. We address two research questions, (RQ1) what underpinning patterns can be identified in researchers' (non-)sharing of research data, and (RQ2) how are attitudes and data-sharing linked to researchers' general practices of conducting their research. We identify and describe <em>data-decentered culture</em> and <em>non-data culture</em> as alternatives and parallels to the <em>data-driven culture</em>, and describe researchers de-inscriptions of how they resist and appropriate predominant notions of data in their data practices by problematizing the notion of data, asserting exceptions to the general case of data sharing, and resisting or opting out from data sharing.</p>