Data Sharing Shortfall

Even when journals ask that published researchers make raw data public, they tend not to.

Written byBob Grant

| 1 min read

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Researchers are, by in large, not making their raw data publically available, even when the journals they publish studies in ask them to do so, according to a study of 500 papers published in the 50 highest-impact journals in 2009. Additionally, the journals' policies regarding such data sharing vary widely. Almost half of the journals surveyed required that authors publish post their raw data on publically accessible databases, while just as many encouraged such data sharing without mandating it. Publication guidelines at a handful of the journals make no mention of public data sharing at all, the study found.

The survey, published last week in PLoS ONE, included 351 papers bound by some data-sharing policy but found that less than half of these (only 143) ...

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Meet the Author

Bob Grant
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From 2017 to 2022, Bob Grant was Editor in Chief of The Scientist, where he started in 2007 as a Staff Writer. Before joining the team, he worked as a reporter at Audubon and earned a master’s degree in science journalism from New York University. In his previous life, he pursued a career in science, getting a bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology from Montana State University and a master’s degree in marine biology from the College of Charleston in South Carolina. Bob edited Reading Frames and other sections of the magazine.
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