Members Say Open Data Is More Important Now Than It Was 12 Months Ago

"The Wiley Society Member Survey has tracked the rising importance of open access (OA) in the research community and what members are looking for from societies when it comes to OA for several years. Regardless of subject or region, support for open data proves to be continuously strong. So, whatever discipline you’re in and wherever you are in the world, open data is a timely issue that all societies need to think about. The results of our 2020 survey make it clear that open data is also here to stay, and scholarly publishing may need to do some catching up....

Over half of our 2020 survey respondents said that open data is more important than it was 12 months ago. 73% believe it’s important that societies offer open data that is FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) to better understand each other’s work. Society support for open or transparent peer review is also extremely important to 71% of respondents. As research collaboration grows and the need for sharing data grows along with it, societies will need to do more to make research data more accessible....

No-cost or open access to society content is the top desire for most researchers. Likewise, we found that making journal articles more accessible to non-academic audiences, greater transparency around peer review, and improving how we measure the impact of research are also highly important. According to their members, only a quarter of societies (26%) currently make it mandatory that data should be shared, while 61% of societies actively encourage the sharing of data...."