University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany.
University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany.
PLoS One. 2020 Jul 1;15(7):e0234172. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0234172. eCollection 2020.
E-science technologies have significantly increased the availability of data. Research grant providers such as the European Union increasingly require open access publishing of research results and data. However, despite its significance to research, the adoption rate of open data technology remains low across all disciplines, especially in Europe where research has primarily focused on technical solutions (such as Zenodo or the Open Science Framework) or considered only parts of the issue.
In this study, we emphasized the non-technical factors perceived value and uncertainty factors in the context of academia, which impact researchers' acceptance of open data-the idea that researchers should not only publish their findings in the form of articles or reports, but also share the corresponding raw data sets. We present the results of a broad quantitative analysis including N = 995 researchers from 13 large to medium-sized universities in Germany. In order to test 11 hypotheses regarding researchers' intentions to share their data, as well as detect any hierarchical or disciplinary differences, we employed a structured equation model (SEM) following the partial least squares (PLS) modeling approach.
Grounded in the value-based theory, this article proclaims that most individuals in academia embrace open data when the perceived advantages outweigh the disadvantages. Furthermore, uncertainty factors impact the perceived value (consisting of the perceived advantages and disadvantages) of sharing research data. We found that researchers' assumptions about effort required during the data preparation process were diminished by awareness of e-science technologies (such as Zenodo or the Open Science Framework), which also increased their tendency to perceive personal benefits via data exchange. Uncertainty factors seem to influence the intention to share data. Effects differ between disciplines and hierarchical levels.
电子科学技术极大地增加了数据的可获取性。研究资助者，如欧盟，越来越要求以开放获取的方式出版研究成果和数据。然而，尽管开放数据技术对研究具有重要意义，但在所有学科中，其采用率仍然很低，尤其是在欧洲，那里的研究主要侧重于技术解决方案（如 Zenodo 或开放科学框架），或者只考虑了问题的部分方面。
在这项研究中，我们强调了学术界中感知价值和不确定性因素等非技术因素，这些因素会影响研究人员对开放数据的接受程度，即研究人员不仅应该以文章或报告的形式发表他们的研究结果，还应该分享相应的原始数据集。我们呈现了一项广泛的定量分析结果，该分析包括来自德国 13 所大型和中型大学的 995 名研究人员。为了检验关于研究人员分享数据意愿的 11 个假设，以及检测任何层次或学科差异，我们采用了结构方程模型（SEM），遵循偏最小二乘（PLS）建模方法。
基于基于价值的理论，本文宣称，当感知优势大于劣势时，学术界的大多数人都会接受开放数据。此外，不确定性因素会影响共享研究数据的感知价值（包括感知优势和劣势）。我们发现，研究人员对数据准备过程中所需努力的假设因对电子科学技术（如 Zenodo 或开放科学框架）的认识而减少，这也增加了他们通过数据交换感知个人利益的倾向。不确定性因素似乎会影响分享数据的意愿。各学科和层次之间的影响存在差异。
