Research assessment should take data sharing into account

"Workshop finds that data sharing should be rewarded and universities and funders have an important role to play in this process. Metrics are not yet sufficiently developed as a measure to be used in assessment and require further exploration. Data sharing should be considered normal research practice, in fact not sharing should be considered malpractice. Research funders and universities should support and encourage data sharing. There are a number of important aspects to consider when making data count in research and evaluation procedures. Metrics are a necessary tool in monitoring the sharing of data sets. However, data metrics are at present not very well developed and there is not yet enough experience in what these metrics actually mean. It is important to implement the culture of sharing through codes of conducts in the scientific communities.   These are some of the findings of the workshop ‘Making Data Count – research data availability and research assessment’ which took place 11 and 12 April 2013 in Berlin. The event brought together researchers, research funders, publishers, infrastructure providers, policy makers and technical experts to discuss whether data sharing could be incorporated in research assessment. At the workshop the study ‘The Value of Research Data – Metrics for datasets from a cultural and technical point of view’ was presented and discussed. At present there is insufficient experience with alternative metrics and therefore it is hard to judge their value. More experiments are needed in this regard. Alternative metrics are not (at present) considered suitable as a measure of scientific quality. Peer review (both before or after publication) still has an important role to play. However, alternative metrics can be useful in showing the broader attention paid to research data. The citation of datasets should become standard behaviour among researchers. Funders should incorporate the sharing of research data sets more strongly when judging project proposals and should offer funds to make sharing possible. Institutions should provide training, support and awareness raising not only among junior but also senior researchers. Learned societies and research communities can encourage data sharing by establishing codes of conduct. And finally the underlying infrastructures (e.g. the use of  identifiers) must be in place and easy to use.   The report of the workshop is now available online and can be found at: http://www.knowledge-exchange.info/Default.aspx?ID=576 Here you can also find a link to the video recordings of the presentations, the slides and photographs taken at the event."