A Study of Data Sharing Practices within Scholarly Research Communities

Recent literature acknowledges the importance of data and effective data management strategies to facilitate collaboration between disciplines of research. Likewise, understanding the policies and practices that support data sharing is a growing area of research in the fields of information and social studies of science. Shared data allow researchers to build on fellow researchers’ work to enrich and facilitate advancements in science. While much has been written to identify the elements that adversely affect data sharing in scholarly research, a definitive framework remains unclear. Several theories have been presented to explain this shortfall; however, the reasons are highly diverse. Some suggest the factors that impact data sharing practices include delays in the peer review process, ineffective data management practices, mistrust, financial considerations, and vague data sharing policies and procedures. Those who support data sharing have acknowledged the important role of funding agencies to leverage the sharing of data in scholarly research in return for researcher support. Likewise, advocates suggest that scientific societies should establish data sharing as standard procedure. Respected organizations such as the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), National Science Foundation (NSF), and National Institutes of Health (NIH) are tasked with developing modern strategies to ensure that policies and procedures regarding data management and dissemination meet the evolving needs and computational capabilities of the 21st century. While the NSF has proposed recent, updated regulations to guide the scientific community to adopt a culture that promotes the sharing of research data, literature suggests that regulations have been ineffective in advancing data sharing practices. The purpose of this research study was to review the NSF federal grant application process and its influence on timely data sharing practices. Most importantly, the goal of this study was to identify definitive ways in which the NSF grant application process may be improved to expedite the sharing of research data in the future