anandpotula

Is data sharing denial a great bane to the community?

An essential component of scientific research data, which is a collection of measurements, information and observations, is useful to understand a plethora of challenges, including rapid changes of climate, curing dangerous diseases such as AIDS and cancer and plausible mechanisms of several complicated physical systems and others. Progress in many subjects of research is impeded by lack of sharing information among the scientific fraternity, an undisputed fact that is having wide concurrence among research and academic fraternity around the Earth. Aside from data denial, it has likewise been noted that the supplementary scientific information from articles printed in top scientific journals, including Science, Nature, Cell, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and Lancet and others has become unavailable. Though it is an inevitable fact that data must always be treated as private and one’s own property (of investigators) that will be applied to maximize research papers at the disbursement of its widest possible use, I strongly think that denial of data sharing to the remainder of the community, at least to the requested party, often fix both the progress of own research and its application to the welfare of social club. To elaborate more on this, sharing data promotes multiple perspectives by helping to identify errors while discouraging fraud and it is likewise helpful to train young researchers and increases the efficient use of funding. Most significantly, the citation indexes for publicly available data will be higher (larger than 69 %) as quoted by a recent research finding (Piwowar et al. 2007[1]). It is high time to bring in that distribution of information among community facilitates science.

It has been observed that sharing of information is not happening but due to lack of willingness and ability to partake in. It is cheering to know that data sharing is not being limited by neither funding nor government agencies, be it in the area of malignant neoplastic disease, nanotechnology and atmosphere research and other fields (Kyzas et al. 2005[2]). The so-called traits, including lack of willingness and ability to share data have happened possibly due to personal and professional difficulties (Feinberg et al. 1985[3]). A major personal difficulty is time, while professional difficult is fear a truth one must obey. Keeping personal difficulty trait aside, professionally, it is often suspected that the expiration of data may allow other researchers to challenge the conclusions by a re-analysis, may find mistakes if any exist, and misinterpretation may happen due to lack of expertise in performing analysis and interpretation and others.

Contrary to above, it is likewise true that plenty of data is available freely on the World Wide Web (internet) that is being provided by few institutes, organizations and universities in several nations round the globe, which can be accessed by requesting the stakeholders by sending a simple e-mail. Further, proper analysis tools (software) and rendering methods are being provided by few institutions in order to maximize knowledge about the scheme that is being considered, by thinking in the wrinkles that the analytic thinking of potentially large and heterogeneous datasets is not an easy job even for well-established research and academic establishments. For instance, Thermosphere- Ionosphere- Mesosphere Energetics and Dynamics (TIMED) mission, which is first Solar Terrestrial Probe initiated by NASA of United States, is offering services to the community and ‘Unidata’ program of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) in United States distributes data to more than 100 universities worldwide and it also offers tools to help researchers study and see the data. Personally, I used to download lot of Earth’s atmosphere data from few important internet sources including http://cdaac-www.cosmic.ucar.edu/cdaac/index.html, UCAR sponsored COSMIC radio occultation technique website that provides lower and upper atmosphere parameters with higher spatial and temporal resolutions, http://iri.gsfc.nasa.gov/, International Reference Ionosphere website that provides several important ionosphere parameters, and others.

A feasible solution, according to my view, is that it would be better to seek requests for data access along with a rough idea of the proposed research work to be carried-out, if one intended to share their data. Once scientific idea is accepted on its scientific merit, data need to be provided along with analysis and interpretation tools. With this extended help, a researcher is able to analyze and interpret results properly in more meaningful and appropriate way. Being a sharer, the foremost advantage is that the research citation of the data sharer will be increased as the posting of their datasets in repositories and on websites will increase the number of people who encounter the publication like an adage goes that grazing cows always look for greener pastures. Most importantly, re-analysis, if done, often prompt enthusiasm and synergy around a specific research question, thereby indirectly focusing publications and increasing the citation rate of all participants.

————-The author, Dr P S Brahmanandam (anandp@jupiter.ss.ncu.edu.tw) did his Ph.D from India, is currently working as a Senior Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Institute of Space Science, National Central University, Chung-Li, Taiwan.

[1]Piwowar HA, Day RS, Fridsma DB (2007) Sharing Detailed Research Data Is Associated with Increased Citation Rate. PLoS ONE 2(3): e308.doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0000308

[2]Kyzas PA, Loizou KT, Ioannidis JP (2005) Selective reporting biases in cancer prognostic factor studies. J Natl Cancer Inst 97: 1043–1055.

[3]Fienberg SE, Martin ME, Straf ML (1985) Sharing research data. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press. viii, 225 p.