Since 2000, federal funders and many journals have established policies requiring more open sharing of data and materials post-publication, primarily through online supplements and third-party repositories. This study examined changes in sharing and withholding practices among academic life scientists, particularly geneticists, between 2000 and 2013.
In 2000 and 2013, the authors surveyed separate samples of 3,000 academic life scientists at the 100 U.S. universities receiving the most National Institutes of Health funding. Respondents were asked to estimate the number of requests for information, data, and materials they made to and received from other academic researchers in the past three years. They were also asked about potential consequences of sharing and withholding.
Response rates were 63.9% (1,849/2,893) in 2000 and 40.8% (1,165/2,853) in 2013. Proportions of faculty in 2000 and 2013 who received, denied, made, or were denied at least one request were not statistically different. However, the total volume of requests received from or made to other scientists dropped substantially (19.4 received in 2000 versus 10.8 in 2013, P < .001; 8.4 made in 2000 versus 6.6 in 2013, P < .001). Faculty in 2013 also made an average of 8.4 requests to third-party repositories. Researchers in 2013 were less likely to report sharing resulted in new research or collaborations.
The results show a dramatic shift in sharing mechanisms, away from a peer-to-peer sharing model toward one based on central repositories. This may increase efficiency, but collaborations may suffer if personal communication among scientists is deemphasized.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 23. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 09 January 2019.
All research outputs
#2,080,469
of 34,360,889 outputs
Outputs from Academic medicine
#795
of 7,703 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#25,811
of 336,340 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Academic medicine
#14
of 92 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 34,360,889 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 93rd percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 7,703 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 11.9. This one has done well, scoring higher than 89% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 336,340 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 92% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 92 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 84% of its contemporaries.
