Factors influencing research data communication on Zika virus: a grounded theory
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-05-2018-0071 |
| Pages | 910-926 |
| Date | 09 September 2019 |
| Published date | 09 September 2019 |
| Author | Michelli Pereira da Costa,Fernando César Lima Leite |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Records management & preservation,Document management,Classification & cataloguing,Information behaviour & retrieval,Collection building & management,Scholarly communications/publishing,Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance,Information management,Information & communications technology,Internet |
Factors influencing research data
communication on Zika virus:
a grounded theory
Michelli Pereira da Costa and Fernando César Lima Leite
Faculty of Information Science, The University of Brasília, Brasília, Brazil
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to propose a theoretical model to illustrate factors influencing
research data communication on diseases caused by the Zika virus.
Design/methodology/approach –The grounded theory methodology was adopted. For data collection,
interviews were conducted with 13 Brazilian researchers involved with the Zika virus theme. Data analysis
was performed using the open, axial and selective coding processes, according to the principles of the
grounded theory.
Findings –Based ondata collection and analysis,seven theoretical categoriesrepresenting interveningfactors
in Zika virus research data communication were identified. The emerging theory showed the centrality of
researchers’expectations for acknowledgment and reward,influenced by the aspects of researchfunding and
academicculture. Three factors involvedin the macro processes of researchdata communication: data use, data
productionand data sharing. In the use and productionprocesses, factors relatedto collaboration figured most
strongly.In the production and sharingprocesses, the factorsregarding data processing andthe use of research
data repositorieswere more pronounced. Finally,data sharing, and the possibility of reusing data are directly
affected by the social context of Zika virus disease as an emerging disease.
Originality/value –The study presents a theory developed systematically to explain the phenomenon of
communicationof research data on Zika virus.The theory presents a set of interveningfactors of the process of
communicationof research data and discusses the factors in light of thefundamentals of information science.
Keywords Research data, Scientific communication, Open data, Data sharing, Open science,
Academic culture, Data communication
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Deriving from Garvey’s (1979) scholarly communication notion, which includes the ideas of
production, dissemination, and use of informa tion, the concept of research data
communication in this paper refers to the processes of production, sharing, and use of
data for the development of a given field of research. Initiatives to systematize such
processes were documented even in the 1950s (Ruttenberg and Rishbeth, 1994), and in the
1970s, this topic was already found in information science literature (Søndergaard et al.,
2003). In the 1990s, the discussion broadened from the Human Genome Project (HGP), which
invited researchers from all around the world to share their data so as to contribute to the
sequencing of the human genome (Zatz, 2000).
From the HGP experience, there has been a growth in the implementation of mandatory
or recommendatory policies for research data communication, especially those resulting
from public funding. The subliminal argument of these policies is that results from research
funded by public resources is common property and, hence, should be widely accessible.
However, the perspective of public science is also valid for research not funded by public
resources, as research results should be broadly accessible in order to guarantee the
characteristics of modern science as the historical construction of knowledge, assessment
and refutation (Boulton, 2013).
The assumption with regard to science produced with public resources is that it should
meet the needs of society as a whole and contribute to its social development. Two striking
initiativesfor data communication illustrated these aims.One of them was the aforementioned
HGP; as it summoned researchers to share human genome sequencing data,it underlined the
Journal of Documentation
Vol. 75 No. 5, 2019
pp. 910-926
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0022-0418
DOI 10.1108/JD-05-2018-0071
Received 8 May 2018
Revised 4 November 2018
Accepted 8 February 2019
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0022-0418.htm
910
JD
75,5
importance of this action for the cure of illnesses affecting a great part of the global
population, such as AIDS and tuberculosis. The other initiative was the research data
communicationpolicy of the National Institutes ofHealth (NIH) from the USA, which aimsto
optimize scientific development in the area of health sciences, thus contributing to human
health improvement. These two proposals claim that benefits stemming from data
communication will help improve collective health.
International initiatives in favor of open science and open access propose that wide
access to scientific information, such as publications and original research data, can
optimize scientific efforts and accelerate the advancement of science. A recent international
initiative seems to confirm this expectation. In January 2016, the main research institutions
and notable scientific publishers in the area of health sciences signed a declaration in which
they committed to making scientific communication on the Zika and Ebola viruses freely
available, in the form of data and publications (Dye et al., 2016).
The existence of the Zika virus has been recognized since 1947 in Africa. However,
according to Vasconcelos (2015), it was only in 2004 that an epidemic resulting from the
virus was registered in African and Asian countries. In 2015, the first reports of the virus in
Brazil were established. By March 2016, 500 suspected cases of Zika virus disease had been
registered, and three deaths were confirmed (Brasil, 2015a, b). In the same year, the
European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) registered some cases of people
infected by the virus in European countries (WHO, 2016), coinciding with a period of
international interest in the virus.
In addition to being transmitted by the same vector that transmits the chikungunya
virus, dengue virus, and yellow fever, the Zika virus possesses similarities to these diseases
in its symptoms, means of prevention, and treatment (Chaves et al., 2015). What draws
attention is that, long before the incidence of Zika virus disease, dengue fever was already a
known disease in Brazil and other developing countries. In Brazil alone, 1.5m confirmed
cases and 1,900 deaths from dengue fever were registered between 2013 and 2015 (Brazil,
2016). However, it was only after the incidence of Zika virus disease that the issue became an
international concern. From such concerns, data communication actions and publications in
the context of open science aimed to promote group efforts in overcoming the disease.
Therefore, it became relevant to investigate the conditions that led the Zika virus to become
an international concern and an object of open scientific collaboration.
From the scenario outlined here, the study on which this paper focuses sought to answer
the following questions: from the researchers’point of view, what factors influenced
research data communication about the diseases caused by the Zika virus? Why were
research data on diseases caused by the Zika virus more likely to be communicated in the
context of open science than other diseases? This paper aims to report on investigation
results, and to propose a theoretical model to represent factors influencing research data
communication about the Zika virus from the perspective of biological science and of health
science researchers.
Methodology
This research adopteda systematized review and a groundedtheory as its methodology. The
systematized review of the literature was elaborated according to Grant and Booth (2009)
proposal. Thirteen selected articles were selected from the Library and Information Science
Abstracts (LISA) database (Table I). The search was conducted in mid-2016, through the
search argument ((ti (“research data”)ORti(“scientific data”)) AND sharing). The criterion
used for the search privileged the documents that represent the subject of the sharing of the
research data as themain subject and that reflected this subject in the title of the paper. The
analysis systematized from a form[1], allowed to identify a preliminary categories system
about the theme. The Gephi software was used in the ordering of categories.
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Factors
influencing
research data
communication
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