A beginner’s guide to data sharing
Originally published on the Cogtales blog and is reposted with the author’s permission. Science is becoming more and more open and transparent, and I think that’s awesome. An important aspect is sharing whatever information is necessary to reproduce results, usually that includes data and scripts. While open science can be beneficial for a researcher, this practice is still being met with some (justified) skepticism, but has become more and more accepted and common in research; in fact PLOS One for example made it a requirement for publication (how well that’s going is a different story). Funding agencies across the globe are quickly following suit, so chances are high you either already have to or will in the near future think about data sharing. But what does it entail? There are several issues that in my view do not receive enough attention, and that add unnecessary hurdles in the sharing and re-use of data. But first, let me get this out of the way: sharing data is great, but you should do it the right way. If you succeed, you will not only help the community, but also yourself by making your work more visible and even citable. This way you get credit for your […]