State of Open Data Poster

Last year, Figshare released the results of its global survey of 2,000 researchers in a report that assesses the global landscape around open data and sharing practices. The report highlights the extent of awareness around open data, the incentives around its use, and perspectives researchers have about making their own research data open.


This poster will cover some of the highlights of the report including:


For the majority of respondents, open data is already a reality:

• Approximately three quarters of respondents have made their research data openly available at some point; a similar number are aware of data sets that are open to access, reuse, repurpose and redistribute.
• Researchers place value on the credit they receive for making data open:
• Nearly 70% of researchers value a data citation as much as an article citation. A further 10% value a data citation more than an article citation.
• Awareness of open data transcends age and career progression:
• Encouragingly, Principal Investigators (PIs) and Professors consistently responded similarly to PhD students and Post-doctoral fellows in their awareness of open data usage.
• Respondents admit to uncertainty and gaps in their knowledge and are hungry for more information, perhaps one set of critical factors that hold back progression in open data sharing.
• Researchers are uncertain of how to cite datasets
• Researchers who have never made data openly available are considering doing so.

Copies of the report will be available at the poster and all underlying data is openly available on figshare.