Data sharing success stories from Wellcome Open Research authors
| 29 April, 2024 | Jack Nash |
Open data has been rapidly gaining momentum over the past decade, with funders and institutions alike introducing data-sharing policies to align with frameworks like the FAIR Data principles. Wellcome Open Research advocates its own open data policy, requiring researchers to make data as open as possible and as closed as necessary.
To demonstrate open data in action, we’re highlighting the benefits of open data and data sharing success stories from Wellcome Open Research authors.
Why share your data openly?
Data sharing can accelerate the pace of discovery, provide credibility and recognition for authors, and lead to increased public trust in research. This also brings benefits for wider society, including driving innovation in technology, better evidence-based policy-making, and economic benefits.
Key benefits of open data include:
Increased credibility
Open data boosts the credibility of research and enhances the transparency of the research process.
By providing access to your data and source materials, as well as comprehensive information about them, others can reproduce the research. This can help to corroborate findings and, in turn, build trust in results.
When you enable the replication and validation of your research findings, others can that they ensure your conclusions are built upon a firm foundation, helping to demonstrate their robustness within the research community and beyond.
Enhanced visibility
If you publish your research as an article and deposit datasets in a repository, your work can be found via both routes. This can lead to more visibility of the research, as readers can discover and access it via both the journal and the repository.
Get credited
If your data is cited by another researcher in their work, you will get credit as the person who created it. Similarly, other stakeholders and third parties, such as commercial organizations, museums and libraries, also get credit for making resources available.
Greater citations
There is evidence that open data sharing is associated with increased citations, with one study finding that sharing data openly in repositories is associated with up to 25% more citations to the research paper.
Data sharing in action
But what does data sharing look like in practice? Take a look at three data sharing success stories from Wellcome Open Research authors.
Raincloud plots: a multi-platform tool for robust data visualization
Across scientific disciplines, there is a rapidly growing recognition of the need for more statistically robust, transparent approaches to data visualisation. Complementary to this, many scientists have called for plotting tools that accurately and transparently convey key aspects of statistical effects and raw data with minimal distortion.
This Software Tool Article describes a data visualization approach which overcomes existing issues, providing maximal statistical information while preserving the desired ‘inference at a glance’ nature of barplots and other similar visualisation devices.
The Software Tool Article has been viewed over 51,000 times, downloaded over 3,000 times, and cited over 600 citations.
Tracking the international spread of SARS-CoV-2 lineages B.1.1.7 and B.1.351/501Y-V2 with grinch
Late in 2020, two genetically-distinct clusters of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) with mutations of biological concern were reported, one in the United Kingdom and one in South Africa.
Using the software tool grinch (global report investigating novel coronavirus haplotypes), this Software Tool Article tracked the international spread of lineages of concern with automated daily reports. Additionally, the authors built a custom tracking website (cov-lineages.org/global_report.html) which hosted the daily report and included novel SARS-CoV-2 lineages of concern as they were detected.
The Software Tool Article has been viewed over 8,000 times, downloaded over 900 times, and been cited almost 50 times.
The STORK dataset: Linked midwifery and delivery records of the mothers and index children in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC)
This Data Note describes the linked antenatal and delivery records of the mothers and index children of the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) birth cohort study.
These records were extracted from the computerised maternity record system ‘STORK’ used by the two largest NHS trusts in the study catchment area. The STORK database was designed to be populated by midwives and other health professionals during a woman’s pregnancy and shortly after the baby’s birth.
The cleaned ‘STORK’ records provide health, social and maternity data from the very earliest period of the ALSPAC study in an easily accessible format, which is particularly useful when other sources of data are missing.
The Data Note has been viewed over 1,400 times, downloaded over 70 times, and been cited three times.
Publish your research and data
If you’re ready to join thousands of Wellcome-funded researchers already publishing their work with Wellcome Open Research, submit your research for publication today.