Show Me the Data! Reflecting on the Data Sharing Practices Demonstrated in Published Research at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School

Objectives: In the interest of making data findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR), the National Institutes of Health (NIH) will institute a new Research Data Management and Sharing Policy in January 2023. This policy will require researchers applying for NIH funding to submit a Data Management and Sharing Plan. As 63% of grant dollars received by University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School (UMass Chan) researchers comes from the NIH, we explored whether UMass Chan researchers are currently sharing data associated with their published research.

Methods: PubMed was searched for articles published in 2019 with a UMass Chan researcher as either the first or last author. These articles were examined for evidence of original or reused data, the type of data, whether the article stated that data was available, and where and how to find that data. The format of the datasets shared, the license attached to the datasets and whether the datasets had a permanent unique identifier was also noted.

Results: Of the 713 articles found with a UMass Chan first and/or last author, 535 were research articles that produced original data or reused existing data. Of those articles with data, 57.4% (307) were NIH funded and 17.4% (93) had a data availability statement. The storage location of most datasets was not mentioned and those not found in a repository were available upon request or hosted on the journal website. The most popular repositories metnioned shared genomic data. 46% of the datasets found had a permanent unique identifiers and most were using Creative Commons Licenses. 86% of reused data noted in the articles was someone else's and most articles did not mention how to access reused data or linked to reused data in the methods. We also found that articles published open access were not more likely to share their data.

Conclusions: The predominance of genomic data sharing and how data is being shared mirrors the results of previous studies (Borghi, 2021; Hampton et al., 2013) This paper will highlight how the results of the study inform our library services surrounding data sharing, as well as how other libraries can support researchers as new data management and sharing policies come into effect.