New Applications for measuring Data Impact in a Domain Science Open Repository

Data usage metrics are essential to inform repository administrators, funding agencies, and data authors and users about research impact. Like many open repositories, the DesignSafe Data Depot Repository (DDR), a natural hazards data repository, presents Make Data Count (MDC) compliant metrics for each published dataset. Over the last two years the DDR team has developed applications of MDC statistics for benchmarking levels of data usage and for examining usage patterns across time. These provide more revealing insights than a typical count of views or downloads per individual dataset. The applications leverage DesignSafe's extensive publication metadata, enabling a granular view of what data types are used, when, how much, and for how long. To date, the results have provided a picture of continued usage and stability in usage patterns for the majority of the repository's datasets. Other applications such as correlating MDC metrics with citation counts are in the works. The applications highlight the value of usage metrics which, in the form of longitudinal studies, can inform the implementation of long-term strategies to increase data usage, develop targeted data services, and to become more sustainable by demonstrating a repository's key role in the open research landscape.