Care to Share? Researchers' Motivations and Reservations about Data Sharing

University researchers fall on a spectrum from frequent public sharing of high-quality research data to no public research data sharing of any kind. Research data professionals may intuit many reasons why researchers do or do not share their data publicly, and we may use our intuition to modify our services and approaches to promote greater sharing. Through a campus-wide survey of researchers, we are utilizing quantitative methods to understand researchers’ motivations to share and impediments to sharing both generally and within the campus repository. This project asks: What motivates researchers to share data or prevents them from sharing data, and, of those reasons, which are the most significant? What aspects of a researcher’s position type, career stage, and demographic characteristics influence whether and why they do or do not engage in data sharing? (For example, are researchers from historically marginalized or underrepresented groups more or less likely to share data than members of majority groups? Do they have different fears about data sharing?) Based on the survey findings, what strategies could reduce barriers to sharing data and utilizing research data services? The survey also addresses responsibilities for preparing and sharing research data. Early career professionals are disproportionately responsible for data preparation work, yet they are also more vulnerable to potential negative outcomes (e.g., unbalanced credit, judgement about mistakes), than established faculty. The study design accounts for career stage and responsibilities to explore how early career researchers specifically can be further supported. We will share preliminary results from our first round of recruitment and encourage participants to speculate on how these results may translate to their own institutions.