Creating a website for your research and placing your publications and research data in an archive greatly increases the exposure of your research. Research has shown that Open Access (OA) publications receive 2-3 times as many citations as articles that are only available via journal subscription.
3.2 Benefits of Data Archiving & Sharing
Data sharing makes for good research as it allows for independent verification of results and conclusions and further analysis through the reuse of data.
Reinforces open scientific inquiry. When data are widely available, the self-correcting features of science work most effectively.
Encourages diversity of analysis and opinions. Researchers having access to the same data can challenge each other's analyses and conclusions.
Promotes new research and allows for the testing of new or alternative methods. Examples of data being used in ways that the original investigators had not envisioned are numerous.
Improves methods of data collection and measurement through the scrutiny of others. Making data publicly available allows the scientific community to reach consensus on methods.
Reduces costs by avoiding duplicate data collection e orts. Some standard datasets, such as the General Social Survey and the National Election Studies, have produced literally thousands of papers that could not have been produced if the authors had to collect their own data. Archiving makes known to the field what data have been collected so that additional resources are not spent to gather essentially the same information.
Provides an important resource for training in research. Secondary data are extremely valuable to students, who then have access to high-quality data as a model for their own work....
4.3.1 Data Sharing Methods
Data Dissemination is actively making your data accessible to others. Some researchers make their datasets available via their personal or group websites. Data sharing is done in 3 ways:
Email request - Interested researchers email and request the dataset. This is the most common way that data is shared.
Website - Researchers place datasets on their website that anyone can download.
Archiving - Researchers place their dataset in an archive.
Archiving is the preferred option as most archives serve the dual purpose of data preservation and dissemination. Their archives usually have a search utility and are often indexed by the major web search engines, thus increasing the chances of other researchers using and crediting your datasets and publications. Archiving datasets also means the dataset owner does not need to maintain a website and can specify a wide range of access controls. If your dataset is online, then including the link in your publications will greatly increase its use and exposure....
4.3.2 Copyright & Licencing
The owner of any original data holds copyright over that data from the time the data is created....Licences grant permission for others to use the copyrighted data. Open Content Licences are an easy way for researchers to licence their data for others to use....The most notable open content licences are
Creative Commons - most popular open content licences
Science Commons - similar to Creative Commons but tailored for scientific data and publications.
GNU Free Documentation Licence - used by Wikipedia....
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
